Thousand Mile Night
by Tafferling
Summary: ON HIATUS Undead. Deadra. Beasts or the Afflicted. Caiden Voros spent a lifetime hunting the wicked and warding the innocent, until betrayal brings an end to everything he's held dear. With the snap of chains and a howl, Caiden finds himself turned into the very thing he's sworn to fight: a monster, its hunger greater than any he's ever known.
1. Hircine's Gift

**U** ndead. Deadra. Beasts or the Afflicted. Caiden Voros spent a lifetime hunting the wicked and warding the innocent, until betrayal brings an end to everything he's held dear. With the snap of chains and a howl, Caiden finds himself turned into the very thing he's sworn to fight: a monster, its hunger greater than any he's ever known.

 **N** o lock will keep her out, she likes to think, and no purse hides from her nimble fingers. And she'll tell you it's all for good fun, because if there's one thing Sadja ever truly thought herself terrified of, it's boredom. Then she meets Death under a coat of pitch black fur, and things get a lot more complicated.

* * *

 **Taffer Notes:** This one isn't just mine, but written together with **Maverick-Werewolf** , and together we form the Maverfield Conspiracy, where no one is really sure if we are _really_ separate entities. We are though. Promise. Anyway.

 _Thousand Mile Night_ is a co-authored piece of fiction based on Elder Scrolls Online, with a cast of original characters taken from our respective works. A great deal of what happens in it is inspired by role play sessions in the actual game, so you'll find references to in-game quests and characters here and there, but mostly we will be following an original story line tailored to fit our characters.

 **Caiden Voros** is part of Mav's **Wulfgard** series.

 **Sadja** is plucked right out of my **a Shielding** **Thing**.

* * *

 **S** un down on the sorry day

By nightlights the children pray

I know you're probably gettin' ready for bed

Beautiful woman get out of my head

 **I** 'm so tired of the same old crud

Sweet baby I need fresh blood

 **T** he moon shines on the autumn sky

Growin' cold the leaves all die

I'm more alone than I've ever been

Help me out of the shape I'm in

 **A** fter the fires before the flood

My sweet baby I need fresh blood

 **W** hatever trepidation you may feel

In your heart you know it's not real

In a moment of clarity

Some little act of charity

 **Y** ou gotta pull me out of this mud

Sweet baby I need fresh blood

Fresh Blood -Eels

* * *

 **Hircine's Gift**

* * *

 **A** nother night, another attack.

Same every time: someone or another would report a mauling on the outskirts of a town, somewhere within twenty leagues of where the Silver Daggers operated. Like it – like _they_ were taunting them.

Caiden sat in silence in the corner of their little guildhall. Open, welcoming, and smelling eternally of pine, mead, and roasting meat, the hall was occupied primarily with tables, chairs, and a large hearth for warmth and cooking.

It was just a meadhall, really. A very quiet one, with only the lamps on the walls for company. And he did exactly what one did in meadhalls: drink.

He glanced at the parchment beside him on the table. All it did was tell him the same thing as the last message the Jarl had sent: someone had reported another missing person, and it was their job to find him. That meant they'd, almost certainly, failed again. The letter went on to detail just how the Jarl was losing patience. But this was the first time the Daggers had ever failed him, and that was the only reason they still had his support.

The bodies were piling up. Or they would've been, if anything had been left of them. All they ever found was blood and gore, and maybe some bones the monster hadn't bothered with. Sometimes cloth and leather and shoes, torn off in the struggle and not worth eating.

Three farms attacked. Three families dead. One merchant caravan slaughtered. Always whenever the Daggers were patrolling somewhere else entirely. Like the monsters knew their movements.

Well, maybe they did. Maybe they'd studied them in advance… but he had trouble believing that.

Or maybe he shouldn't put it past a werewolf pack to be so tactical.

The door swung open with a creak, letting in a gale of frigid wind that put out a few candles mounted to some support beams near the door. Storming in with the breath of freezing air were three Silver Daggers, professional monster hunters. All of them like him, though none quite so experienced.

Not even Hofern, a hunter with grey hair who sauntered over to him and took a seat at the table, mussing his beard to send snow and drops of water flying this way and that. Caiden wordlessly pushed a spare tankard of mead toward him.

"Thanks." Hofern sighed as he picked it up and immediately took a long swill.

"More dead?" Caiden asked. Not that he needed to.

"Four travelers last night, trying to take a shortcut off the roads," replied another hunter, Borgg, who took a seat – and reached over to rob Caiden's plate of its bread.

Caiden shot him a harsh glare with his one eye.

The third hunter came around the table and plucked the bread from Borgg's hand before it ever reached his mouth. She dropped it back onto Caiden's plate, where he quietly picked it up and all but swallowed it whole. Which was really the only way to keep Borgg from trying to snatch it again.

"Haven't we taught you not to steal Caid's food, Borgg?" asked Rosga as she too sat down.

Borgg opened his mouth to answer that with some remark or another, but he paused and then, suddenly, asked something else entirely. In a tone far too demanding for Caiden's tastes.

"How are we sure it's werewolves?"

"The doors are practically shattered – not many things can do that," Hofern pointed out.

"Bodies eaten," Caiden added.

"They only attack at night and they're smart about it," Rosga threw in.

Borgg frowned, but from the way his murky green eyes kept searching their faces, he still had questions.

And he blurted, "What about vampires?"

"Vampires don't eat the _whole person_ , son," Hofern said with a chuckle. "Much less smash into houses like that… Well, most of them, anyway."

"Not the stealthiest werewolves ever," Rosga commented.

But Borgg was on a different line of thought. "So… it might be that werewolf that killed Skarvald?"

Silence.

Caiden stared at his empty plate. Too bad there wasn't more food on it. Because he'd rather think about food than what had happened to Skarvald. Watching the werewolf reach him – tear him to pieces and throw him in a river. Caiden almost felt the icy touch of the water again, remembered trying to find the body…

Rosga finally shattered the stillness.

She said simply, "I'm still not really sure that werewolf ever _meant_ to hurt anyone."

"It fuckin' _meant_ to hurt Skarvald," Borgg cut in. Hotly, like he was looking for a fight. "Does it matter what a gods-damned werewolf does or doesn't _'mean'_ to do?"

"Easy, Borgg," muttered Hofern. "It doesn't even matter now what anyone wanted…"

And then they broke into arguing. Arguing over a werewolf that had killed one of their own and moved on before any of them could catch it. One of the few they'd let get away… Which might've partially been Rosga's fault for taking pity on it.

They kept arguing. Getting worse.

 _Pointless._

Caiden grunted. Loudly – almost a growl.

That made everyone quiet down, but Borgg looked ready for more. So Caiden stood and said, "That's enough."

They kept their eyes on him. _Good._

"They know the way we think, the way we move," Caiden continued, now that he had their full attention. "So we need to change it. We need to hunt like them, not like _we_ would."

"People are getting frustrated, Caiden," Hofern said slowly. "Some even blame us for all this, and the Jarl's threatened to stop throwing us his spare silverware. Lorkild left and said he's never coming back. The order's falling apart."

Caiden set his jaw. He knew all that, but they didn't need to focus on their order right now. They needed to stop the werewolves.

"It'd make sense for the werewolves to attack from the north, since they hit the south," he went on. Had to keep them focused. "So far, they've alternated sides. But they'll change their pattern, try to throw us off. We're going to the Daglsson farm tonight."

Instantly, Borgg threw his hands in the air. "Ridiculous! They _just_ attacked a southern road – there's no way they'd be stupid enough to take the Daglssons with the extra patrols down there!"

"We've seen them kill guards before," Hofern pointed out solemnly.

"And learn patrol patterns," added Rosga.

Caiden wasn't in the mood to debate. He rarely was.

With finality that even Borgg didn't protest, Caiden said, "Let's move."

* * *

 **G** earing up was no problem for him. He had it down to a routine. Check his blades – sword, axe, dagger, second dagger, silver dagger – sharpen them if he had to. Check his bolts, steel and silver. Check his crossbow…

Rosga appeared on his right side, leaning against the wall beside him. She was already suited up – probably didn't double-check everything, as fast as she did it.

"Hanging in there alright?" she asked, lifting a thin brow.

Caiden paused, looked at her for only half a second, and grunted. He tried to make it sound dismissive. He was worried… But he didn't want her to know that.

Still, not like he could hide it. Not from her, anyway.

So she frowned and reached up to put a gloved hand on his, the one checking his crossbow's trigger. Caiden froze. His mind did, too, his breath getting stuck somewhere in his throat.

At first, he kept his eye on the crossbow in front of his face. But Rosga's hand stayed there. Why? What did she want from him here at the last second? Some kind of confession?

Maybe the one he'd been fighting with for months now? So he could admit it and feel like a fool, think about that the entire time they were on a hunt as important as this one?

He swallowed, trying to choke down some of those emotions stirring around again – even if there were already plenty making themselves at home in the pit of his stomach like a lead weight. And, finally, he flicked his gaze over to her.

She just looked back at him with her steady green eyes. Her fingers threaded through his, and he clenched his jaw against the odd little jump in his heart. This was insane. Ridiculous. Maybe even a little stupid.

"We'll be fine," Rosga said quietly, giving him a subtle smile that sent a little blood gathering his neck, and thankfully not any higher than that. He was glad to currently be wearing a fur that covered up the blush. Mostly.

Words came to mind but got garbled somewhere in his gullet, so he grunted instead. A bit softer than he usually did – which Rosga seemed to notice, if her smile growing a tad was anything to go by. Or maybe she saw the blush.

Probably both.

 _Dammit._

But Rosga slid her fingers from his and moved past him. Caiden threw a look at her over his shoulder and caught a stare from Borgg, who had just ascended the stairs leading down to the bunks. Borgg pursed his lips as he watched Rosga go to stand and wait by the door, then looked at Caiden again.

Caiden readjusted the silver brooch near his neck, holding his fur there: a little shield, its emblem a dagger poised over the neck of a snarling wolf. All of the Silver Daggers wore one. Not just to show their allegiance, but to show they were meant to protect people from monsters. Even Borgg had made certain his own brooch showed on his cloak, bold and prominent.

They finished gathering by the entrance: all four of them. The only four left, between things gone wrong and all the discouragement. They'd have to be enough.

Caiden, taller than all the rest, gave each of them a quick once-over. Everything in order. Everyone bristling with weapons, potions, and poisons. Everyone looking ready for a fight, all eyes on him to lead the way. His eye twitched, just once.

 _No pressure._

With a nod, he turned and headed out.

* * *

 **O** n the way out of town, guards had delayed them. They'd stopped the four of them in the street, ordered them to halt, sounding very much like a bunch of drunks asking for a bar brawl. Something about making certain the great Silver Daggers weren't the werewolves themselves.

And they made them stay there until after sundown, no matter what any of them said. Protesting only seemed to get the guards angrier. Caiden's burning need to disregard their authority and leave anyway would've cost them all the Jarl's support and possibly even branded them as fugitives – both things they couldn't afford.

Finally, when night fell and no one started sprouting fur, they had reluctantly opened the gates and let out the Daggers.

Caiden was afraid it would make them too late.

And it did.

A few minutes was all it took. By the time they reached the Daglsson farm, it looked like all the others: door smashed, all occupants dead and devoured. There wasn't much evidence.

Claw marks. Blood. Some scraps of clothing, shoes, some belts, all ripped off the victims before they were eaten… Three victims – one small, based on the clothing left. A child.

And that had made Caiden's guts twist. Painfully.

There were almost no remains – a pack of werewolves rarely left much. Caiden didn't know for sure, but he had a guess they worked on a kind of wolf hierarchy. Pack leader got first pickings, all the others had to pick up afterward.

And werewolves had quite an appetite. Enough for a small family, between however many werewolves there were.

But the kills were fresh, because the place still stank of blood. Very fresh blood.

Caiden's guts weren't the only ones that had twisted. The other Silver Daggers had been upset. Which was understandable. But they had to keep going.

" _Only thing faster than a werewolf is another werewolf,"_ he remembered Borgg saying as they first entered the devastated home.

That was true. Entirely so. Painfully so. Running, attacking, tracking, it didn't matter. Werewolves were better at it. Stronger, faster, tougher. They had every advantage.

Which was precisely why _they_ were out here fighting for all the people who needed them to. It didn't take being equal to the monster, because that was impossible. All it took was the courage to fight them. The dedication to put one's entire life toward that purpose: protecting people who couldn't protect themselves, who didn't deserve living in fear of these monsters every single day… _Or_ night.

Ultimately, it was Borgg's phrasing that had bothered Caiden. It implied things he didn't much care for. He'd had a mind to grab Borgg by his collar and pin him against the nearest wall to get a full explanation for that shitty remark.

Only they didn't have time for that.

Because before Caiden could say or do any of those things, Hofern knelt by some tracks by the back door, which lay on the ground – outside, not in. The werewolves had gone out there. They'd been sloppier this time, not made any effort to cover their tracks.

"We need to follow them," Hofern said quickly, rising to his feet and looking back at them. "The trail's still fresh."

A cold wind whistled through the open farmhouse, chilling Caiden's bare elbows. Or it would have, if he wasn't so used to it. Borgg shivered, even in his armor and his furs, but Caiden wasn't sure it was from the wind.

"They walked single-file to cover numbers," Rosga pointed out, nodding down toward a pair of werewolf tracks still imprinted in the dirt. Almost purposefully so, Caiden thought.

There was a smaller pair within the first one. Those also seemed too perfect, like someone trying to leave a neat footprint in the snow for the hell of it.

"I don't like this," Caiden said, narrowing his eye at the tracks. Werewolves weren't this obvious. Not about anything. They were too smart for that.

"Maybe they ate too much and got lazy," Hofern said as he got to his feet again, brushing himself off. "Or maybe they're getting overconfident without Skarvald trying to trap them."

Even Rosga murmured something about missing Skarvald's elaborate traps. He had always been their best trapper – and the subtlest. Stealthiest. Caiden didn't do subtle.

"I'd sure be confident by now, if I were them," Borgg added.

Caiden felt a hot flare of anger. His lip twitched, but he kept his eye ahead, on the trail.

But Borgg added, "Not like they're meeting any fuckin' opposition, is it?"

"Get in line," Caiden snarled, throwing him a glare this time. Borgg shut his mouth and cleared his throat.

Everyone else went silent, too. Rosga sidled up next to Caiden and gave him a look that reminded him she could read every emotion behind his eye. It wasn't a reminder he really wanted right now.

"C'mon," he said, loading a silver bolt, dipped in poison made from belladonna, into his crossbow as he set off on the trail.

It was stupid. He shouldn't have done it. But he didn't know what else to do.

 **T** he trail led into the forest.

The dark night and the cold wind didn't make for an inviting combination. All around them, the branches of the assorted conifers rustled, needles brushing together like the movement of an animal and setting them all on edge.

Sparse starlight leaked through the well-spaced, old trees, but not enough to make the forest look any less like a thousand lurking silhouettes reaching out toward them with thin, greedy fingers.

Deeper they went, thinking occasionally they would lose the tracks, Caiden knowing the entire time that they _should_ have. This was a trap. The werewolves were leading them into their territory, their hunting grounds. They wouldn't just have every physical advantage, they'd have the environmental ones, too.

On the way, he'd made sure to let the others know that. They'd assured him they would be ready. He knew they meant it.

Trouble was, the trap wasn't what any of them expected. Not a werewolf up in the trees, waiting for an inexperienced hunter who didn't look up. Not a sudden howl that sent forth monsters from the darkness, surrounding them on all sides. But something much more mundane.

Caiden was the first to see it – or, at least, to see _one_ of them. Keeping an eye on all parts of the dark forest around them, he looked up and saw something in the trees: a carefully crafted mace trap made of stone covered in sharpened sticks tied on with rope, all strung up to a trigger somewhere…

Somewhere a few feet in front of them, where Hofern had pulled ahead of Caiden. Only Hofern didn't see it.

"Hofern!" Caiden called, picking up the pace to reach him. "Don't move!"

 _Too late._

 _Again._

Two things happened. A tripwire snapped, right in front of Hofern's leg. And a trigger clicked under Caiden's foot.

Neither of them had time to move. The wooden mace swung down from the trees with a _whoosh_ and a sickening _crack,_ lodging itself firmly into Hofern's side and knocking him clean off his feet.

Caiden couldn't reach him. A leghold – a man-trap, a bear trap's nastier father – snapped up around his right ankle, clamping tight and crunching through his boot, all the way to the bone.

He tried to keep moving anyway, yanking the trap against the stakes fixing it to the ground – and pulling himself right off his feet, landing on his chest with a grunt and a fresh surge of pain lancing up his leg.

Something snapped to his left – then to his right. He heard Borgg yell and swear, heard something collapse and a muffled shout from Rosga. Caiden twisted on the ground, still gripping his crossbow, rolling over onto his back, ignoring the pain throbbing in his leg and the hot blood oozing down it.

Movement. It came right at him, swift and silent. Too fast for him to move. Not that he could, not with the steel jaws crushing his leg.

In a flash of shadow that briefly blocked what little starlight filtered through the canopy, something kicked his crossbow from his hands. Kicked, because it was a foot. A human one. Wearing a boot. He felt the sole of it scrape against his gloves, heard it thud back onto the underbrush beside him.

Caiden blinked. He should've taken a potion to see in this darkness. Didn't matter now.

He reached for his sword, drawing it so fast the figure – _human_ figure – had no time to react. A quick slash, right across its legs, sent it stumbling back with a yell. A human yell.

"Skar!" a voice called – one he recognized. His mind raced.

Lorkild. A new recruit, from just a few weeks ago. Got discouraged and left.

And he wasn't alone.

Something huge came for him then, every inch of it covered in muscle. He heard its breath, felt it hot and wafting over his face as the hulking thing poised itself right over him. Huge, heavy hands slammed down onto his wrists, gripping, twisting his arms – both of them – until the sword fell from his hand and sickening pops tore from his shoulders. Caiden grunted, even louder than before.

Weight slammed down onto his injured leg. Hard. Slammed, stomped, got the teeth in his leg to dig in and scrape his bone. A fresh rush of blood warmed his already sticky boot. His head spun, his teeth ground together. Caiden writhed, just for a second, a groan of pain squeezing up his throat and escaping through his clenched jaws.

The weight atop him shifted, moved, stood off to one side. Caiden tried to focus, but he felt claws on his shoulder – sharp, digging in, sticking right through the fur and leather – drag against his flesh, snatch at thick muscle they found there, and throw him over onto his chest again. It twisted his leg in the trap, rattling the chain staking it to the ground. Caiden almost screamed – almost.

The world wanted to go dark, even darker than it already was. His ears throbbed at him. Caiden sucked in a breath and fought it, even as he felt things moving around him. Someone messed with the trap. Lorkild.

He removed it. His leg was free. Hurting, impossible to stand on, but free.

So he tried to stand on it anyway.

Caiden surged to his feet in one sudden motion, ignoring the pain, ignoring the darkness creeping in at the corner of his vision and making it even harder to see. He saw enough: he saw Lorkild, standing over him. Caiden aimed right for him.

He slammed into Lorkild, sending him into a tree. Caiden's arms hurt, his shoulder bled, his ankle was replaced with nothing but pain. But the hot rage burning in his mind gave him blind strength enough to ram his forearm into Lorkild's throat, pinning him, his other hand going for his dagger—

The claws were back.

They slashed him this time. Across the back, ripping through everything to leave trails of pain and blood, sending him sprawling once more into the cold tangle of roots underfoot. Caiden stood again – on one foot, grabbing a tree to haul himself up – and turned to face exactly what he had expected.

A werewolf. Huge. Towering. Covered in dark fur, silhouetted against the spindly trees. Eyes all but glowing, catching what little light there was and sending it back to him in a flash of red.

They moved at the same time.

Caiden drew his silver dagger in a reverse grip, raising it immediately, wanting to impale it as it threw itself forward – he heard it growl, deafening— he hadn't gotten the blade up in time. Felt it pierce something, but not its heart. Claws raked his chest, threw him again.

He tasted dirt and old pine needles, landing face first on the ground. The werewolf should've been on top of him by now, but it wasn't. So Caiden tried to stand again – it was harder this time, with no trees around to grab onto.

The werewolf stood there, watching him, a wall of fur and muscle in the darkness. Where the other hunters were, he had no idea. He still had one dagger – it wasn't silver. The silver one was stuck in the werewolf's flank, but that hadn't slowed it for a second.

And then an arrow pierced his chest.

Caiden grunted and staggered from the impact. At first, he barely registered what had happened. His body had shut off pain, and he faced a werewolf, not an archer. But the dull numbness throbbing in his torso made him look down, see the shaft and the fletching.

The werewolf came forward to knock him to his back again with one swipe of its arm. This time, when he hit the ground and it knocked the breath from his lungs, he wasn't sure he could get back up.

His best guess was that he was dead.

* * *

 **B** ut he wasn't.

The arrow was still there. So was all the pain, which meant he was still alive. How, he wasn't sure. It should've pierced his heart.

But he woke with his bleeding back scraping against the harsh bark of a tree, his arms behind him in chains that kept him there. Everything hurt. Every inch of him, every muscle and down to the bone.

The werewolf was gone, replaced by a tall Nord he knew too well, even in the dim bluish haze of the night. He was shirtless, scars bared, especially that huge bite on his shoulder.

Here Caiden was: supposed to be dead, and looking at a dead man.

Skarvald paced before him in the clearing. Caiden quickly gathered his surroundings: his friends, all chained to trees around him. Spaced several feet apart. Other figures stood free: humans… or at least wearing the shapes of them.

Something else lived in those shapes, too. Caiden didn't have to see the fur and the fangs to know that.

"A touching reunion," Skarvald said, rubbing his hands together, fingers stained dark with blood. He turned to Caiden next, pale brown eyes smiling at him. "I'm glad you're still with us, Caid. You're the one I would've hated most to lose."

"Sorry, Skar," Lorkild, who stood nearby, muttered, a bow hanging from one shoulder.

Skarvald waved him silent, focusing on Caiden. "You won't live long with that arrow… Try to pull it out and you'll bleed to death. Lorkild's a better shot than he gives himself credit for. But don't worry about that, because I can save you."

Caiden stared at him. The months hadn't been kind to Skarvald. He was worn, haggard, with a dark, untamed stubble growing into a beard. But it hadn't dimmed that lust in his eyes – that love of the hunt.

Once he managed to suck in some breath – his chest protesting incredibly, he briefly thought it might explode – and find his voice, Caiden's response was simple.

"You… son of a bitch."

Skarvald smiled again, more apparently this time. "I'm offering you a new start, all of you—" he turned, looking at Rosga, Hofern, and Borgg.

Caiden could barely see them through the darkness and the throbbing in his head. Rosga seemed alright, if bloodstained. And she moved, twisting her wrists in the shackles. Hofern didn't move much, but he was farthest away. Borgg, Caiden had to crane his neck to see, but he was motionless.

"We deserve one," Skarvald went on. "The Jarl wants to disband the Silver Daggers. And why shouldn't he? Not even Caiden, great hunter that he is, could outsmart Skarvald and his pack, or the traps he set."

"You a Khajiit now?" Rosga spat. "'Skarvald sets fancy traps, yes. Skarvald is good hunter.'"

Skarvald chuckled. "Obviously I didn't think you'd understand yet," he replied. "But you'll come around…"

His pack of three others moved. Caiden couldn't tell what they were doing – Skarvald stood in the way, blocking his vision. He heard someone hiss, as if in pain. Then Lorkild went to Hofern, holding something… and again Skarvald stepped in front of Caiden's vision. Caiden growled, pulling against the shackles.

"…once you accept Hircine's gift," Skarvald finished.

Hofern choked and sputtered. Caiden stopped moving, straightening his spine against the tree, looking over Skarvald's head, barely enough to see Hofern start twisting, a scream ripping from his throat…

Caiden's eye went wide. He heard a gasp from Rosga, and something like a gag from Borgg, not too far off.

Hofern's chain snapped. Something huge fell away from the tree, a shape not wholly man and not wholly wolf that charged off into the night, crashing madly through the forest.

"Hofern always did comment on that werebear we killed a few years back," Skarvald commented casually. "Now he has all that power and more."

For once, Caiden's mouth shot off before his mind caught up. "You _sick bastard!"_ He growled, pulling his chain taught, his arms and chest protesting so badly he wanted to scream. But he _didn't_ scream, gnashing his teeth as he tried to rip free.

Skarvald started back a step, mockingly, that same taunting little smile on his face. "You're not too far removed from a wolf, yourself, Caid— you ever thought about that?"

Borgg's shackles rattled as Skarvald's packmates approached him next. Caiden heard him spit at them, something about, "Get back—!"

But Skarvald kept going, moving toward him, getting right in Caiden's face and blocking the scene from his view. "You lead your pack, you'd give your life to protect them, and you're like a watchdog for all those little people out there," he gestured vaguely back in the direction of the farmlands, "without ever asking for more than some food in return…"

Another scream – popping cartilage, ripping cloth – then another snapping chain. A howl pierced Caiden's soul, but even as another werewolf was sent ripping through the forest, Skarvald barely paused.

"You even have your pent-up rage, just like an animal. And you're so damn stubborn about dying. You'd chew your leg off so you could go pitch yourself in front of an arrow for someone else inste—"

Caiden threw his head forward. It wasn't smart, considering it was already throbbing and wanting to give out on him. But despite it making his ears ring even louder, his skull slammed into Skarvald's face hard enough to make him stumble back with a yelp, clutching his nose.

 _Worth it._

Skarvald snorted, wiped his bloodied nostrils on the back of his arm, and lifted a brow at Caiden. "That's gratitude for you," he muttered. "I'm about to save you from that arrow and give you unimaginable power. This is my thanks from an old friend…"

"Shut the fuck up," Caiden half growled, half grunted.

"Aye, Captain," Skarvald replied dryly. "I'll let you watch in silence instead, if that's what you prefer."

With that, Skarvald moved off, and Caiden finally saw what it was that Lorkild carried: a simple clay cup… stained with blood.

And he stopped beside Rosga, Skarvald drifting over to join him. Again Caiden straightened up, the anger briefly leaving his face. Rosga's eyes caught his, and it nudged that pain in the pit of his stomach again – woke it up from its fitful sleep. Now worse than ever.

"Skar…" Caiden started.

"Don't beg me, Caid," Skarvald shot back. "That wouldn't be like you."

"He's right," Rosga said calmly, simply. "It wouldn't."

She closed her eyes, let Lorkild move right up to her and take her jaw to force it open.

Caiden pulled at the chain around his arms – once, twice, thrice – his entire body protesting and the arrow in his chest reminding him he'd die if it got lodged in a slightly different direction, but he didn't care. He pinched his eye shut, putting all his strength into it—he couldn't watch.

Something inside him pulled at a chain, too. Something he never let free and everyone else did. Emotions.

The chain inside him snapped. The one outside didn't.

Rosga screamed. Caiden threw back his head and roared. As if that would help – as if it would make him able to pull free.

A chain broke. _Hers._

More feet – now inhuman, running on all fours – pounded off into the night. Her gait was lighter than the others, her passage quieter but no less feral. Running off with her was a little piece of him that he didn't know he'd take with her when she went.

But she did. And it left a hole, one more painful than the arrow still sticking out of his chest.

Footsteps. They crunched the dead needles and the underbrush, stopping right in front of him. Skarvald.

 _Fucking bastard—_

He had a cut on his arm, fresh and bleeding. A cup in his hand, stinking of blood.

Caiden would kill him. He'd _kill_ him. His nostrils flared, his punctured chest heaving and struggling for breath. He had never, not once, felt such a powerful desire to feel another man's neck snap in his hands.

Skarvald didn't say a word as he reached up to grab Caiden's jaw.

Caiden grunted, tried to jerk himself free, but Skarvald's hand was like a vice. He grunted again, louder this time, yanking against the shackles and uselessly kicking his one good leg in Skarvald's direction as his skull was shoved back against the tree and his mouth was forced open.

The stench of blood filled his nostrils, acrid and coppery – and he got a mouthful of it a second after. It choked him, made him gag, and he did his best not to give in. He wasn't swallowing a drop.

But it kept coming. Some of it spilled down his face, over his chin, hot and reeking and leaving a sticky trail of bright red. He could only choke for so long before he swallowed enough to suck in a gasp of air.

The second he did, the hand released his face and Skarvald moved back. Caiden spat and shook his head, hoping, praying, willing it to be true that the sickening warmth trickling down through his chest wasn't that twisted monster's blood.

"Enjoy your new life, Caiden," Skarvald said, tossing the bloodstained cup away. "I know I have."

Pain. Sudden, shocking – blinding. Powerless, he pinched his eye shut and tried not to cry out. But he _did_ cry out. The sound tore from him long before he could consider stopping it, the pain far too immense. It was like nothing he had ever felt.

His chest exploded. His head split down the middle. His spine became a spire of agony.

He writhed, he spasmed, his bones popped, cracked and twisted like they wanted to rip free of his flesh – his muscles twitched, jerked—pulled against each other and kept growing until he felt his skin would burst. Fire pulsed under his skin, hotter than anything, trying to get free, coursing through him with the frantic pumping of his pierced heart.

All he could do was scream.

Somewhere during it all, the chains around his wrists snapped.

Caiden was free.

And Caiden was lost.

* * *

 **D** aylight.

He awoke with a start, as if nothing had ever happened. The pain was gone, almost forgotten, like his mind tried to shield him from it. It felt like a nightmare. Nothing felt real, and what little there was – sounds, feelings, sensations, a burning rage and an even greater hunger – faded fast.

Still, everything was wrong. He had no wounds, not even in his chest. All that remained was an ugly scar, another one to throw into the collection.

And he was covered in blood.

At first, Caiden didn't move. He felt a weight in his stomach of a meal he had no memory of eating. He didn't even know what it _was_ … but everything stank, and tasted, of blood.

Everything was sharper – every scent, every sound—even the sunlight felt almost blinding, opening his eye again after what seemed like so long and yet so instant. The air was alive with scents: pine, birds, deer, a boar somewhere a ways off, berries, detritus scattered all over the forest floor.

There were no words in the languages of men or mer to describe this array of smells and sounds, this assault on his senses. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced – or even heard of – before.

How he knew these smells, these scents so powerful he practically tasted each one, he had no idea. Something told him, some instinct he knew he shouldn't have. But it was there – and it told him something else, too.

Rosga. She was close. He could smell it.

Caiden ignored everything. The few tatters of clothing still hanging from his body and covering nothing, the blood on his face and his hands and spattered on his chest, even the fact that he could walk on both feet again, much less breathe. He ignored all of it.

Rosga. _Gods-dammit—_

The world was different, so fresh, so alive, so full of colors and sights and sounds – little movements, little smells, little things previously so unnoticeable that they couldn't possibly have existed before.

None of it mattered.

He found her lying under a pine tree stained with blood. The blood was his, but he wasn't sure how he knew that. Maybe the smell. This was the tree Skarvald had knocked him away from the night before, leaving a light spatter of Caiden's blood from the wake of his claws. It was when he'd left his silver dagger in Skarvald's side… The one missing when he'd seen Skarvald in human shape again.

Rosga didn't move. Caiden stopped in his tracks barely a foot away. She lay crunched up, hands clutching something. She wasn't breathing.

Caiden swallowed against the knot growing his throat, blinked against the unusual mist forming in his eye. His breathing stuttered and faltered.

Then he inched forward and knelt to gently lay a hand on her shoulder that jutted so sharply toward the sky. Bracing himself for what he already knew, he turned her onto her back.

A silver dagger jutted up from her chest, stabbed through her own heart and still gripped by both her cold, bloodied hands. It was _his_ dagger – the one that failed to kill Skarvald.

For a long moment, Caiden sat there, motionless. He forgot how to move. He forgot most everything. He even forgot how to not feel, and how to seal away those emotions that found a way through.

Yet he didn't forget the anger. The hatred. The burning need for revenge. The vow he swore right then – to himself, and to her, wherever she was now. The one purpose for which he now allowed himself to continue to live.

Those were the feelings he wanted to remember.

But as he carefully closed Rosga's eyes, he knew he'd always remember something else, as well. That part of him she'd taken. That part, that giant chunk of his soul he now felt sure he'd never get back. Never feel again.

That little part, not so little after all. Something called love.


	2. The Trail

**The Trail**

* * *

 **T** he skies looked like they'd been through the wringer, full of heavy clouds that drooped low, their bellies tickled by mountains reaching up in turn. _Rain,_ it all spelled out. Lots of it. Torrents, Sadja guessed, and glared at the bruised clouds as if that'd make them reconsider watering her.

She scoffed. Yanked the saddle cinch she'd been fussing with a little tighter. Wasn't like some extra water would get her sprouting any more, now would it. Not by a finger's width, no-sir.

So— she tugged on the strap again— the _"Hey, boy."_ for when they mistook her for the runt of man's litter, and _"Dirty little knife-ear."_ for when they took a closer look, they'd all keep coming.

 _Swish-snap._

Debby's tail came about like a whip. A sharp and well aimed one, the sting of it enough to tell her that the mare wasn't at all pleased with having the cinch tightened even more. Her grunty exhale only stood to reinforce that message— right along with an accusing glare thrown out from under a thick, white mane.

"Sorry." She gave Debby a sheepish smile, let the fender and stirrup drop, and climbed on without missing a beat.

Debby shifted, hooves crunching on loose rock. She tossed her head. Gave another swish of her tail, and started off on the lightest shift of weight on her back.

No more dallying, Sadja thought. No time to waste. There was honest work waiting, _real_ honest. Absolutely, cross her heart and swear to die and all that nonsense. Plus, even if the rain wasn't going to make her grow any more, it'd certainly wash away the tracks of her quarry. That thing destined to weigh down her coin purse with something more than moldy air.

* * *

 **F** irst stop? The scene of the crime, a homestead a little ways off the neatly cobbled road winding through craggy hills towards Riften. Secluded. Pretty. Likely rather expensive, too. If one liked living squeezed between walls. Thick walls, made of rock and hard wood, made to keep the wind out. And the sleet and the snow and the chill, all of which hung around the Rift most year round. Even with how the weather here was a lot more tempered than it was in the rest of Skyrim.

Sadja didn't _mind_ walls. Just hadn't really spent a lot of time surrounded by them. Couldn't— if she was being perfectly honest —really remember the last time she'd slept on something else than her bedroll laid out on earth or grass.

She didn't mind that either. Not really. Liked the stars. Liked the chirp of crickets, the calls of frogs and toads. All of that— except in winter, but that's what you had legs for.

Those always carried her south.

Now, further north than she'd really expected herself to be this time of year, Sadja scuffed her boots against the wooden porch and scanned the Nord house with its two floors and pretty flowers hung below shuttered windows.

It'd not started raining yet. Good. Better yet, the clouds had parted a little, given room for snatches of light peeking past their dark edges. At this rate, the whole deal would work out perfectly. She was certain— felt it in her bones and in her gut and in the excitement poking at her heart.

An excitement that tripped over itself when her eyes turned down to take in the damage done by her quarry. Sadja's throat sort of stuffed itself with thick, hard to swallow grime. Once, there'd been a door. Now, there were splinters and blood. Lots of blood. Dry, black splatters patterned the frame and walls, and thick smears led across the wooden landing to pool on two flat steps.

Three people had died here last night: a carpenter, his wife, and their son. Nords.

Nords were tall.

Much taller than Sadja. Chances were, even the kid'd had an inch or so on her, a fact that she often considered incredibly unfair. She frowned, kicked the thoughts of her vertical handicap aside, and wandered along the abandoned, broken home, her eyes scanning the ground.

 _I'm not_ that _short,_ she told herself. _Not for a Bosmer. I'm average. Maybe a little below. Maybe that don't matter._ Sadja puffed out her cheeks. _Shortcake._

She grunted, shoved her mind back into the right direction.

Her quarry had dragged (or chased) the family from their home. And then it'd torn them to shreds right next to a well tended vegetable garden. Had eaten its fill there, with tomatoes and cabbages only a quick grab away. None of the veggies had been touched, and Sadja wasn't going to pinch any either. The ground by the garden had drunk up the blood and the blades of grass were a sticky red instead of leafy green. The bodies, or what'd been left of them, had been removed just before she'd arrived— and while she was thankful for that, it made figuring out where to look a little difficult.

Too many footprints. Human. Canine.

Mix of both.

So she wandered aimlessly for a while, her nose scrunching up here and there when she caught a particular pungent whiff of blood and gore. At least until a throaty, deep bay drew her attention to the edge of the forest. Standing a single leap away from the dark underbrush, his tail stiff and his wide shoulders shaking with every bark, was a light-grey coated Markarth bear-dog.

Of course Stendarr had picked up the trail.

 _Should have just asked,_ she chided herself. And should have guessed came right after. It _had_ to be the forest, after all. Not the road or the fields, or the hills behind the home. It made sense. Woodsy woods were best for hiding.

Since werewolves couldn't fly and take to the skies.

"Good job," she called, and Stendarr's butt hit the ground immediately, his tail now wagging and the bark gone to make room for a happy whine.

They couldn't. Fly. Could they?

* * *

 **T** he tracks started out easy enough to follow. The forest was roomy, the ground soft, and Debby's hooves thudded down all hollow like as she steadily threaded her way between the tree trunks. It'd started drizzling though. And the sky had taken to growling, right about an hour of navigating through birch and fir and maple. Much like Sadja's stomach, that growled, too. Though while the latter was easily enough silenced with some bread and cheese, the sky just kept getting louder, the thunderheads creeping ever closer.

Though maybe she'd get lucky and they'd head the other way. Bother some other sod.

And Sadja was often lucky. Especially today. She could bloody well tell.

* * *

 **D** ebby's ears twitched. Her nostrils flared— and with one loud snort, the whole blue roan shook in a bid to work some water from her mane, because drizzle or not, wet was wet. Sadja paused munching on her bread. Stared at the ears turned back her way and then leaned forward to give Debby's mane a quick rub.

 _Ba-aah?_

The tentative noise came with a nip at the small of her back, one that turned insistent and worked its way through her coat and jacket, tickling her and coaxing a titter from her throat.

"Sam," she whined and shot a look over her shoulder at Debby's second rider.

 _Baa-ah!_ said Sanguine, one part enthusiasm, one part accusation. The stunted goat— equally unfortunate as Sadja in that regard, which was likely why they got along so well —balanced himself on the mare's rump, his horned head turned up at Sadja and his small goat mouth nibbling at empty air.

 _ **Bah!**_

Sadja smirked, twisted around, a slice of bread with cheese still between her teeth, and wagged the food at Sanguine, his tiny, pink tongue darting in and out between soft goaty lips. Nimble hooves clicked against the saddle's cantle and his neck stretched and stretched and stretched until he reached the bread she dangled in front of him. Munch-munch— until it was all gone. Except the cheese. She didn't give him that, but tossed it up ahead to be snatched from the air with a snap of Stendarr's jaws.

* * *

 **T** here was _some_ sense in her following a werewolf's tracks.

 _Some._

Nevermind that it'd gored Nords with much greater stature than her. They'd been carpenters, after all, so no big surprise there. Gentle, even for Nords, and she doubted they'd kept a great deal of silver weapons at hand. Since, first of all, silver forged into blades was expensive. If obtained by exchanging gold for them, at any rate. More so though, they weren't a lot of bloody use if she was to be perfectly honest.

Silver was _soft_. Too malleable, quick to chip and bend.

But soft or not, it stung the living hell out of werewolves.

Sadja slid from the saddle. Rubbed a hand against Debby's warm neck, fingers catching in her mane on the way back out, and watched Sanguine jump from the horse's rump. He landed gracefully, bounded a few steps, but didn't stray far. He never did and never would. Unless specifically told to.

"Watch over Debby, will you, Sam?"

 _Bah-a._

"Appreciated."

Some sense, yes.

She pulled her bow from the saddle, slung it over her neck. Counted the handful of arrows in the quiver strapped to her thigh, half of them tipped in silver, their heads wrapped in linen soaked through with an oily tincture of belladonna and wolfsbane. The same tincture lined the sheath of her silver dagger— the bloody thing with its blade almost as long as her forearm, and so much heavier than any iron or steel weapon would have been.

Lastly, she slipped a hand into one of Debby's saddle bags, questing about until her fingers found the stopper of a small vial. She pulled the cork out with her teeth, spat it to her feet, and emptied the vial's contents down her throat.

Gross.

More belladonna. More wolfsbane. And then some, all meant to keep her from growing tufts of fur in case she got bit or scratched— on top of what resistance her Bosmer blood already offered. Blood that made certain she didn't drop dead from drinking that cocktail either.

She slid the empty vial back into the bag. Placed her hand on Debby's soft, warm nose in goodbye, and turned to leave. A quick snap of her hand against her thigh, and Stendarr was by her side.

"We'll have cheese for weeks after this," she told him as she pulled a hood over her head, the cowl coming down just as the first fat raindrops started falling.

Allowing herself a small, smug smile, she set off to catch herself a wolf.

* * *

 **T** he forest grew denser. Thicker. Here, the trees tried hard to smother each other, fought for air and water and sunlight, until only the most stubborn ones grew tall and proud, while everything else was reduced to tightly packed shrubs. Under her boots, and Stendarr's softly padding paws, the ground was mostly packed earth, gnarly roots, and patches of moss, with shed needles and leaves cushioning their footfalls. Long as they didn't step on twigs, anyway.

The tracks themselves had become— erratic. A little harder to see. Though werewolves, most of them, were heavy, and very little that weighty could manage to walk through a forest without leaving a trail. So she followed imprints in the soil, scrapes on roots bared to the air, and torn up moss. And with every step her stomach squeezed together a little tighter and her heart beat a little faster, drumming a quick rhythm against her ribcage.

Fear? No. Anticipation. _Excitement,_ the thump-thump-thump of her heart almost falling in perfect tune with the pitter patter of rain tearing through the thick treetops.

By now, night flirted with the idea of de-seating the day from its temporary throne, hurried on by the storm catching up.

Thunder rumbled overhead.

And Stendarr growled.

Sadja froze. Let her fingertips kiss the shaft of an arrow. Listened. The growl died, but Stendarr's flanks twitched, his hackles raised, and his eyes turned to stark shadows between thick tree trunks.

Not a _we're about to get eaten_ growl. But an _I don't like this_ growl _,_ and so Sadja snuck forward until she reached the hound's side. It didn't take her long to pick up on what he'd found.

She swallowed. Placing a placating had between his shoulder blades, she whispered, "Good boy," and crept ever onwards. While wondering when she'd gone absolutely mad.

One werewolf? Psht. Been there, done that.

Her eyes flicked down. To an indentation in the ground easily as large as a greedy Nord's dinner plate. It was twice the size of the tracks she'd been following.

Two of them? She frowned.

A thick root had been good as severed, white, fleshy wood winking back at her where a claw had sliced through it. Recently.

Well. Two?

That'd be _fun._

* * *

 **S** he'd mistaken it for the wind tearing down an old tree first, pulling the roots up and snapping a thick, dry trunk in half. The thunder didn't help either. It'd long outgrown the deep growls rumbling across the land, and turned to the sharp whip-cracks of lighting bolts ripping the sky apart.

But no. This was no tree being uprooted, and certainly not any wind she'd ever heard.

She looked to Stendarr and Stendarr looked to her, hound and Bosmer exchanging a quiet _Oh, bother,_ because that crashing sound and the hackle raising growls and bays? Not the storm at all, no sir.

Sadja's lips pulled down, her heart chattering uneasily. She'd heard dogs fight. Often. Wolves, too. Yips and barks and snarls and all, vicious and dangerous in their very own right. But this— this was something else entirely, and to be perfectly honest she reconsidered her plan as her mind's eye set out to imagine what lay out there in the dark.

It sounded a bit like a night terror setting out to murder a nightmare. Hungry and feral and _final._

"Stay," she told Stendarr. He whimpered back at her, but even if he was reluctant, his legs folded and he lowered himself into the muck. _Huff, I'm not happy with that, huff,_ it all said, but she cared not.

Leaving Stendarr, Sadja crept on, rain pouring down around her in a hard torrent. The forest's treetops had long given up on keeping the water out. Which, now as she approached the racket somewhere up ahead, was _good._ They'd not hear her, even with her boots sometimes landing badly. And they'd certainly not smell her, the rain washing her scent from the air.

Lucky after all.

A minute of slow progress later, and she reached a small hollow, the ground dipping sharply. And down there, at the bottom of the slope, bone crunched and flesh tore and two snarls turned to one.

She froze.

 _Oh. Shit._

Death towered over a mountain of patchy, grey fur. It wore a coat of perfect black, long and thick, even with how the water pressed it down over its arched back and wide shoulders.

Sadja swallowed. Were those arms, claws and all, about _her size?_ Nah. Couldn't be— nuh-huh, that was just a trick of the light. Or lack thereof.

She pulled an arrow from her quiver. Careful and slow, the linen peeling off the tip and leaving a thick sheen of oil on the tarnished silver. Right then she didn't hear much past her heart drumming against her ears and her breath catching on every second pull.

Death stood straighter. Taller and taller and taller, and Sadja shrunk back a little as she flicked the arrow forward, nocking it. Her mouth was dry. Her tongue heavy.

But _Death_ was _hurt._ She could see the sheen of blood on its flanks. Gashes bleeding freely, because apparently even Death took a beating when it tangled with kin. And all she could think of was _two werewolves— one's free—_ as she took aim and let the arrow fly.

It bit Death and Death did _not_ like that one bit.

It growled, the noise getting her bladder to pinch painfully, and whipped about to fix a set of— no— a single, eye on her. And before she had a chance to draw another breath, Death leapt. It bounded up the slope, tore up the ground under heavy claws, and vaulted the ridge even as she rolled from its path.

She heard its teeth snap shut. Catch air instead of her shoulder. Felt heat roll off it where it passed by, bringing the thick taste of blood and fur and the forest's dark heart. Sadja bolted. Wove left and right and right and left, branches catching on her clothes and face. And when her spine tingled and pulled hard left, she followed what her gut told her and threw herself there, her shoulder rapping against wood or rock and bouncing off sharp and painful. Better than having her back torn open by Death catching up though— better by far —least for a little while, since she'd forgotten about the ditch. She tumbled down, the world turning about in a hurry. Landed heavy. Saw Death tearing after her, a wall of darkness blotching out a brief glare of lighting zipping across the skies.

It made to rip her throat out. Except she caught its neck with a swipe from her dagger, the silver cutting clean and the coat of poison (hopefully) stinging like fuck.

Or not.

Death _grunted._ A throaty, angry rumble that told her she'd _really_ messed up. It pulled forward and landed atop of her, a crushing weight pressing down her right shoulder and slamming her arm back against the ground. The dagger fell from her fingers.

She couldn't move. Could kick, sort of, her knees and feet scrabbling against a hard chest. Could even slam a fist into its head— its snout— but she might as well have been a baby mudcrab pinching a dragon.

Not so lucky then—

Sadja'd looked at death before. More times than she could ever count. She'd chased it often, begged it to dance— for nothing more than the brief flutter of quiet between the thrill and something much more final.

But when this particular Death turned its eye on her, _brief_ turned to an eternity, and _final_ seemed a lot more likely than the alternative. A final that, this time, stared at her from a pool of startling blue, a hard storm trapped in the heavy glare. Death growled. If that noise set deep in its chest and stuttering up its throat could be called that, rather than the crush of a mountain breaking apart.

And when it hitched the hand pressed to her shoulder down, dragging it across her chest, Sadja screamed.

She couldn't _not._ Its claws sliced through her thickly padded leather armor as if it'd been made of silk. Broke skin and muscle and _burnt._ So maybe it'd leave her throat alone and pluck her heart straight from her ribs instead. Fantastic. Except it did neither. Did, in fact, not do much at all for a while. The growl tapered off, and while it didn't exactly lift the weight from her chest, it also didn't keep digging.

Instead it _huffed._ Hot breath— stinking of blood and rancid mud —slid against her cheek and neck.

And then Death jerked.

Its weight gave way as it fell sideways, and Sadja caught a glimpse of light-grey vaulting overhead. Stendarr. Locked with his jaws clamped shut just above Death's withers.

"No!"

She scrambled to her feet, tried to follow Death and Stendarr as they turned over in the rain and mud, until they came to a halt and parted, snarling and growling and their stomachs hovering low above the ground.

"Sten! _No!_ " she cried through the night, the hazy calm of a final moment gone and replaced by stifling panic. One step— two steps— as Death made ready to pounce on Stendarr, who stood his ground like the fucking moron he was.

Three, and Death shot her a one eyed glare. Snarled. And turned to bound off through the rain, a snap of lightning breaking shadows against its bulk.

Sadja wavered.

Her knees turned to pudding. Belated, but still, and she slumped forward with Stendarr in front of her, all lapping tongue and worried whines. Since Death had taken off, she allowed herself a moment. Lay there, breathing. Because she still had a throat to breathe with. Lay there, mind racing, because she still had a head to think with. And then looked across the ditch she'd landed in, right to the pile of grey fur.

Dead, grey fur.

She scoffed.

Lucky after all.

* * *

 **H** er chest itched.

Freshly knitted skin and meat always pulled too tight, way too tight, and she had to curb the urge to scratch it all open again. Though worse still were her burning ears. Not the fun sort of burning, no. It was the horrible sort that made her grit her teeth and wish she'd be two times taller. Because if she had been, maybe they'd not have dismissed her that easily. Maybe they'd have thought twice, instead of sending her off with a mere two coins to rub together, rather than the healthy jingle of a pile stuffing her purse.

Since, clearly, she couldn't have possibly killed the werewolf they'd been wanting dead. Not a bloody chance, now get out of here, knife-ear.

Well. They weren't _wrong,_ but that was _entirely_ beside the point.

Irritation and anger bubbled on in her gut, and for a while she sat stiff in the saddle, the reins hanging loose and Debby picking her way down the road on her own. Ahead of her, Sanguine skipped about like a mad-goat, scaling boulders by the roadside, bouncing off them the next moment, or just trotting along in his choppy gait.

Riften faded behind them.

It'd been home once. Riften. A ratty home and a cold home, patched together from a bed made of straw and fur in the dripping cistern below the city. That'd been years ago, enough of them that she'd not bothered counting.

 _Clop-clop- Clop-clop—_

Now, home was out here. Out _anywhere,_ really, on Debby's gently swaying back and huddled up under a tree with Stendarr's head resting on her leg. Still— she cast a look over her shoulder, at the walls still visible above trees and hills.

She sort of kind of on occasion missed the Rift, so what of it? Was allowed to. Even if Bosmer weren't all too well liked here.

Sadja grunted, her irritation flaring hotter than intended, and scratched at the wound again. Correction, the scars. Fuming never did mesh well with healing magic, so it'd gone a little wrong when she'd tried to put herself back together. All thanks to that Nord lout who'd refused her pay.

Which, in turn, meant that she hadn't had the coin to buy a potion potent enough to fix the scarring, because _honest work was shit,_ and her own tinctures were far less effective than what apothecaries carried.

Or maybe it would have scarred anyway, potion or not. Maybe werewolf maulings did that. Scar. Stick around. She sighed, tapped at her sore chest. Felt sorry for herself, and muttered a quiet: "Ouch."

 _Should restock,_ she thought next. Fill her alchemy pouches. Debby's saddlebags had been getting a little light overall, and with the coin she'd expected now gone, it wasn't like they'd stuff themselves.

And then what? Scrunching up her nose, Sadja realized she'd made up her mind even before she'd paused to consider. Leaning lightly in the saddle, she convinced Debby off the road. Set her on a route back into a forest that still clung to the rainstorm from last night.

Stendarr huffed from her right. Wagged his tail— timidly so —a question hanging around them.

"What? It's got my attention," she told her hound.

 _Huff._

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you aren't just a _little_ curious. Go on. Find me a werewolf, would you?"

 _Huff-grunt-bark,_ and Stendarr trotted off.

* * *

 **T** hey lost its trail twice. And without Stendarr, she was certain she'd have had no chance of picking it back up.

The werewolf ranged far, covered more ground than horse and rider could match. Not long, and it'd left the forest behind, crossed craggy hillocks rolling beneath a grey sky, and then slipped back into thickly wooded valleys.

It. Death. _It?_

"I bet it's a boy," she murmured on the second day.

* * *

 **T** hey found a camp the next morning. Abandoned, the fire pit covered with earth, but with a hint of warmth still clinging to it. Large, clawed imprints led in from one end of the camp, while large boots had kicked the dirt over the fire. And a shooed horse had come and gone.

She followed that.

* * *

 **C** ome nightfall, she asked Sanguine: "Whatcha think he's doing out here?" a handful of nuts in her hand, every second one shared with the little goat.

 _Baah._

"Yeah. Beats me, too."

* * *

 **T** he second camp wasn't empty.

Sadja caught a wink of white through shrubs and trees. And for a while she stared and stared and stared. Her chest itched again. Reminded her how things had gone really terribly wrong last time. She scratched at it. Thought a little harder.

 _Whine?_

She swallowed. Glanced down to Stendarr sitting at attention, his ears perked. Then she made up her mind and turned Debby around.

* * *

 **H** e'd set up camp by the curve of a gently bubbling brook.

And she was quite certain about the whole _he_ deal now, considering the clothes she found. Either that, or he was an orc, though even orcs didn't often sport the size of shoulders needed to fill out the shirt she was holding up in front of her. It'd been neatly folded and stacked with a set of well worn— or well worn _out,_ really —leathers and trousers. Even the boots had been straightened out perfectly next to it. Very large boots, she noted.

And atop the clothes had lain a leather eyepatch.

She'd collected all of it. Bundled it up tight, and strapped it to her back. Except the boots and the eyepatch, the former of which she left where he'd put them. The eyepatch she tied to a low hanging branch poking into the camp, a little bit off center from the perfectly dug fire pit. In perfectly plain sight.

Then she shared an apple with the pretty white stallion roaming about the camp. He was gorgeous, that one. Gorgeous and sturdy and loyal, judging by how he hadn't run off while his master was off— being all wolfy.

Murdering other wolfies.

"You're a good lad, mh?" she hummed, coaxing him to lower his head enough for her to scratch the fuzz between his eyes. "And if you don't go telling where I've gone, you'll get another apple."

He had weapons too, of course. A sword, the edge glinting sharp and dangerous, an axe with the handle well worn and a little chip in the blade, and a crossbow that was altogether too unwieldy for her. She took those too, though admittedly with a bit of difficulty, wrapped them in linen, and stashed them in a fallen tree trunk.

And through it all, she only paused to wonder if she'd gone insane every second minute or so. Was, in fact, thinking it right now as she climbed a thick oak not too far off on the other side of the brook and perched herself up there to overlook his camp.

There was _some_ sense in her madness though. A flakey logic to how she expected him to want his gear back, and that he couldn't ask her for it in his wolf-coat.

So up on the tree she sat, since werewolves couldn't fly.

She was pretty damn sure of that.

* * *

 **W** hen he returned, she almost fell right off her perch. Sadja huddled together tighter, her palms clammy and her heart stuttering in her chest. God's blood, she'd forgotten how massive he was. Maybe he wouldn't _need_ to fly, just have a swipe at the tree, get the whole thing crashing down, with her tangled up in the branches.

 _Don't be ridiculous._ Because that _was_ ridiculous.

Right?

Right.

It didn't help that she had plenty of daylight to work with— and that his fur bristled as he approached the camp, thick and heavy at the crest of his neck.

He— she craned her head to the side —seemed a little uncertain on whether to walk on two legs or on all fours, at times moving forward in a prowling, low stance, only to righten up again. Was he scenting?

 _Bugger._

Listening?

His ears flicked. His lips peeled back a little. Didn't take long, and he'd spotted the eyepatch.

 _Thump-_ he fell on all fours, hurried to where she'd dangled the bait, his head on the swivel and that unnerving low growl ripping at the air again. Did it make the tree shake? No, that was ridiculous, too.

 _No way._

His eye snapped to the tent. His hackles rose a little more still— and when he turned around, she realized she'd fucked up. Again.

How'd he found her so quick? How was he looking _right at her?_

The werewolf— Death once more —rushed for her tree. He crossed the brook with one bound, kicking up water behind him, hit the light slope with the ground covered in fallen needles and leaves— and slammed into the oak.

Her tree trembled. Sadja yelped. Gripped the branch she sat on tight.

And then he leapt. It looked almost lazy from where she sat. One step forward and his rear legs pushed him up far enough to dig his claws into the first, thick branch.

"Oh you got be joking—"

Sadja scampered up another layer. Then another— and another— but he kept climbing right after her. Silent like a fucking _cat,_ and not a raving lycanthrope as you'd bloody well expect. Right until she'd had to retreat outwards on a branch, because he'd almost had her by the ankle, at which point the rattling growl made its return, all _You're dead when I catch you._

So Sadja thought maybe not getting caught might be an idea. She crept out further, eyes skipping across more trees and trying to figure— maybe—

—they landed on the horse, abandoning the trees. His horse. He'd not hurt his horse, would he. No. Pretty sure he wouldn't.

 _Stop thinking, start doin—_

The branch jolted. Almost rocked her off, and Sadja's head whipped back around to where Death hunkered at the base of her refuge. His lips had pulled back, perfect white fangs winking back at her in a snarl that promised pain.

He set one large hand— or paw— no, hand— but also paw— _Oh by the Eight, you're such a stupid cunt, Sadja—_ on the wood.

"Oh- no- no- don't you—"

He did. One push down and the branch snapped.

And since she'd used up all her luck, the ground came rushing for her a little too fast and smacked the light right out of her.


	3. Little Thief

In which Caid wonders how many bites the little thief in his camp amounts to, and Sadja finally meets the man under the wolf coat.

* * *

 **Little Thief**

* * *

 **T** he little thief landed in a heap. Little, because she was tiny, compared to him anyway. Thief, because she took his clothes in a bundle along with her straight to the ground.

Not that it seemed like a very smart thing for a thief to do. Or a werewolf hunter. He hadn't forgotten that silver she'd come at him with. The stings – the poison. The feeling sick and weak for a few hours after he turned back, laying there and shivering, waiting for it to go away. Almost wondering if it would, because he'd never actually known what it was like to be on the other end of that.

He planned not to let it happen again.

It made him angry, thinking about it. So he tried not to. Because here she was, not loosing arrows at him. Being annoying, true, but still – she wasn't trying to kill him. That was new. For him. Lately, anyway.

Turning, he climbed down the tree – a graceful bound down to the next strongest branch, and with one more short stretch, he was back on the ground again. He padded over to where the little thief lay motionless, sniffing the air the whole way. Waiting for that annoying hound to leap out at him again. He didn't want to have to kill or hurt it. Seemed like a good dog.

Scents on the wind. The smell of horse – not just his horse. A mare. And the smell of that dog, a Markarth bear-hound, like he remembered. Something else, too. It smelled like goat.

And _her_ scent. Sharp. Wild. Spices and pine that mingled together in a smell that lit his senses on fire. Some leather, from what she wore. There was a hint of metal, too. Like wilderness touched by the city – like her.

Hungry. _Not right now._ No, not this time. He had a grip. Planned to keep it. Even if she smelled good.

He wished he wouldn't think things like that. Couldn't help it.

When he reached the little thief, he nudged her shoulder with one huge hand, turning her on her back. Glanced her over again. Definitely the same one. Not that he needed to see her to recognize her scent. Which he sniffed again, now that he was here and so close.

His stomach growled at him, reminding him he didn't find enough food before he came back to camp. It was harder to turn back that way. Not to mention it'd leave him feeling weak.

He realized why smelling her made him so much hungrier – not just because he was a monster now and she smelled good. But because he smelled actual _food_ , too – in her bag. Things people were _supposed_ to eat. And he was trying to still be a person.

Better get her off the ground first.

Why? Did it matter? _Little thief._

And that little thief moved. Not much, not yet. Just a twitch at first, but he noticed it instantly. Caiden pricked his ears up and watched her, narrowing his single eye. Sniffed a few times. Again.

Waking up. Scared. Smelled like fear. Not as much fear as most people would, though. Not just a strange little thief – a brave one, too. Brave or stupid.

Maybe he should do something about her waking up. Should he? Didn't want to eat her. Didn't really want to kill her, either. It felt wrong somehow. She'd been hunting werewolves… Not so different from him.

Only he wouldn't have been so peaceful this second time. Had to give her credit for that.

No. Not going to kill her. Maybe. Not until she gave him more reason to, at least.

So hard to think sometimes – or to think about something other than food and survival. Think about other people. Like he used to. Always.

He tried. That was why he was out here, always moving. Trying not to lose control, hurt someone.

Including the little thief, whoever she was.

She woke up enough to stir a little more and to start blinking. Caiden was still there, looming over her on all fours. She really _was_ little. He felt hungry enough to eat the Bosmer in one bite, one swallow. Wouldn't be the first time.

 _Stop it._

Hungry. Needed food, and he still smelled that food in her bag…

The little thief stared at him now, her eyes open and focused. Eyes colored like honey, staring at him. Strange eyes. Elf eyes. He'd never been around many elves.

Caiden's fur bristled. His lips twitched.

 _Don't eat her._

He huffed. Almost a growl, but not quite. A huff hard enough to blow hot breath all over her and tell her not to move. She seemed to understand – she went completely still. Her heart was racing. He could hear it.

* * *

 **T** hings were all on wrong at first. For one, she was on the ground, and that stirred panic in her gut. Sadja squirmed, felt a dull ache spread along her side, fanning out from where she'd landed on her shoulder and smacked her head into something hard. A root, maybe. A rock. Didn't matter, her skull had been tougher. She took a breath, smelled pine and dirt and— _wolf._

 _Oh. Oh- Shit._

Her eyes flew open, and there he was: Death.

He blocked out the world, hunkering there like he did, his shoulders wide as a mountain range and pitch black fur bristling. When his lips twitched up, showing her a glimpse of white fangs catching the light, she thought he'd eat her. Just gobble her right up, one bite— two— three at the most, and that'd be it.

But he didn't. He huffed at her, the tail end of the exhale curling into a growl, and so Sadja decided to do absolutely nothing. She even held her breath, despite how that made her head spin worse than it already had been doing since she'd come down the tree.

 _Fallen._

Sadja scoffed, puffed out whatever air she'd had left, and promptly drew Death's eye. It narrowed at her, barely holding in a steel blue storm bearing down at her. And because she had about as much control over her mouth as she did over the rise and fall ( _. . ._ ) of the sun, it took off without her explicit permission.

"Hi."

 _Hi?_ Did she just tell him hi?

A werewolf. Him. Huge. Covered in fur. Inhuman. Could eat her right now and still be hungry.

And she said 'hi.'

Caiden blinked at her a few times. Not like he could answer, not like this. He couldn't think much, anyway. It was already hard to focus with his senses assaulted by every tiny thing. Every sound, every scent, every sight and the tiniest movement – even attuned to every slight rustle of his fur when the wind changed direction and brought him different scents.

Always had to pay attention to that.

Boar somewhere to the east. Deer west. Faint trail of a bear nearby. But mostly just that little thief's smell filling his nostrils. Making him hungrier.

And telling him hi. Apparently.

Caiden let out a short, low grunt from somewhere in his chest. It sounded like thunder, and it ended in a growl, too. He hadn't meant it to. He was too hungry for anything else.

So he reached one enormous, clawed hand toward that bag of food she had, the one letting out all kinds of smells that made his mouth water. Better eat that than her. Not like she'd disagree.

His long claws snatched on the burlap, punched right through it effortlessly. He hadn't meant that, either. Either way, he dragged the bag over and poked his nose in it. The smells were almost overwhelming, because the little thief packed some nice food. Bread, cheese, some fruit, some nuts. Even some jerky.

Enough for a few days, at least. For her. For him?

He went for the meat first, ate it all in one swallow. Venison. Then he removed his muzzle from the sack and dug around with one hand instead. Snatched up the cheese – some kind he didn't recognize – the bread, the nuts…

Caiden wolfed – _ugh_ – it down. Every bite of it, in a matter of seconds. His stomach said it still wasn't even enough. It said to eat the little thief too. But he knew it wasn't _ever_ enough.

The little thief hadn't moved. Not yet. Caiden looked at her again, now that he could think a bit clearer. She was small, but lithe. Looked strong, at least for someone her size. His first thought was of a sabre cat… Strong, fast, quiet, and clever. Even if they were bigger than her.

Her fingers twitched. That was all it took for Caiden to tense and bristle his fur again, rising up on his hind legs now and standing far taller than all the saplings around them – some of the older trees, too.

Her bow lay nearby, flat on the open ground, on the forest floor blanketed with brown-red pine tags.

Caiden's eye shot over to it, just for half a second. She couldn't reach it from here, not easily. Not in time.

She knew that, too. She wasn't stupid.

Frustration nudged his mind with a giant paw. And claws. The claws scraped at his thoughts, left marks that stung and reminded him how bad her _arrows_ had stung. Damn silver. Damn poison.

Anger. His lips twitched, showed his long white teeth again. He had to stop a stuttering growl that tried to flare up in his core and rip up through his fangs. Didn't stop all of it. It was enough to make the little thief start – and then freeze again.

Caiden threw her a look. She was still. Fine.

That gave him the opportunity to reach over to her and take his clothes. She didn't move an inch when his claws came so close. He almost felt bad about that. Probably should've taken those back from her when she was unconscious. Didn't matter now.

Her eyes, nervous, flicked to something after that. A tree trunk, one that smelled like the oils he put on his weapons.

He padded over, walking on two legs – a towering beast pretending he could ever really be human again. That always bothered him, because it almost felt normal. But it wasn't.

Caiden grabbed the rest of his gear she'd stolen, shoved his weapons and things under one arm with the clothes. Then he turned and headed toward his tent. Along the way, he reached out and snatched his eye-patch off the tree limb where she'd tied it.

He threw her another look. She watched him. The little thief looked curious. Maybe she had a reason to be, he thought – she'd met a werewolf that hadn't eaten her.

And _that_ had been hard to resist.

But why did the little thief find him again? Why did she go from being a little hunter to being a little thief?

Didn't matter. She tried to kill him, he could've killed her. He didn't. Didn't kill her dog, either. Now she tried to steal his gear. He could've killed her again – but he didn't.

And he ate her food. They were even. Maybe.

As he approached his camp once more, though, his path took him right by her bow. And with one huge paw, he stepped on it, snapping it like a twig with one harsh _crack_. No more silver arrows from her. Not right now.

Then he reached his tent, ducked into it – barely fitting, at least when he was like this. Dumped his gear on the ground and tried to focus.

He hated this. But he hated the other, too. Knowing this was still in there.

Self-conscious. Why? Why bother? Why care so much?

Because he always was now – self-conscious. Wasn't like him. Stupid – ridiculous. Didn't matter. His only company was her, and if she was smart, she'd be gone when he came back out.

No – he didn't want to stay like this.

Turning always hurt. Barely made a difference which way it was going… if the fur was going in or out, if the muzzle was growing or receding.

First he fell on his knees. A whimper shot up his throat without permission as the pain took hold. He shook all over, violently, set his claws into the earth, digging in so deep he almost made fists, leaving ugly ruts in the dirt. Had to hold on to something. _Anything._ He didn't want to stab his own hands – again.

His muscles twitched, felt like they were rolling over each other, trying to find the size they were meant to be and struggling to get there – then tightening so they felt like they'd snap, so taut he shook uncontrollably.

Cartilage creaked like weathered wood, popped as things changed shape – and all of it dragged more groans from his chest, punctuated by whimpers that steadily grew more human, turned to grunts…

And finally to gasps as he fell to his side, the fur crawling back under his skin and making him shiver, catching his breath in his throat.

At least it was a little faster now than it used to be.

Caiden recovered fairly quickly. He grabbed his clothes and his gear, piece by piece, putting them back on with well-practiced efficiency. It never took him long anymore.

And, the entire time, he wondered just what kind of a werewolf hunter would be so foolish as to do something like she just did. Something in the back of his mind elbowed at him and reminded him of that werewolf Rosga had spared, that… crazy Imperial werewolf he always tried to forget about.

So… Maybe someone like Rosga would do what that little thief did. Someone curious – someone nice.

Nice to a werewolf. She was lucky he hadn't killed her – twice now. She seemed like a good hunter otherwise. Well-prepared, apparently knowledgeable, good at stealth… Yeah, she reminded him of more than a few people he'd known.

Scents. Movement.

Scents he didn't know. Scents that weren't that wood elf.

His muscles tensed again, still thick and corded like that werewolf's – the hair on his neck stood at attention like that bristling fur that now hid under human skin. His head turned instantly to his left – it would be his _left_ , his blind side – and looked through the tent, at the shifting light and shadows of the forest.

Watching, listening. Scenting the air.

Everything sounded so loud to him now – he still wasn't used to that. Everything so… pungent. He wasn't used to _any_ of it.

The wind carried smells through his thin fabric shelter. The smell of leather, the sound of it creaking and twisting as the men wearing it walked. Other scents – but he only cared about one.

One that made his blood run cold, even as it set his senses ablaze in warning – made the beast in him struggle in its cage again already, even having just turned back. The wolf snarled and snapped and wanted to escape, like his racing heart had turned into a monster clawing and gnawing at the inside of his ribs.

It smelled like belladonna. Like wolfsbane. And, worst of all, like _silver_. Metal, but slightly… sweet. Sickly, to him. It used to be so subtle, the smell of silver that pure, and he'd have to put his nose to it to even scent it.

Now he smelled it so _strongly_ , even from this far away, and it always did this to him. Set adrenaline rushing through his veins.

He gripped his crossbow, silently loaded a bolt. Werewolf hunters… He wasn't sure how they'd found him. But it didn't matter now. He had to get ready for a fight.

* * *

 _ **A** rse._

Sadja glowered into the general direction of the tent.

 _Hope that shit hurt real good, you stupid_ _ **mutt.**_

And she glowered and glowered and then finally looked to the side, at her pack first (torn open) and then her bow (snapped in half). Admittedly, better it than her, since she figured he'd have broke her apart with about the same effort: none whatsoever.

 _Eaten you just as quick, too._

Turned out her luck still held, even though she wondered if she'd come near depleting it, and should consider pacing herself, rather than hurtling ever onwards. Like an egg rolling down a cliff. _Watch that shell._

 _CRACK_ her bow had gone when Death'd stepped on it. And _CRACK_ she'd go, too. So she got up, dusted herself off, kicked at the pack with the giant hole in it, and swallowed hard to keep her opinion on the destruction of her stuff to herself. Then she picked it up, slung what was left of it over her shoulder, and mosied over to her bow to snatch that up too (well, one half of it, anyway). Right about then she felt a little like walking into the tent and smacking whoever had hidden under that wolf coat.

Maybe, if she hurried, she'd catch him at the most opportune of moments: with his trousers only halfway up. Then the sad half of her bow she clutched in her hand would certainly sting.

 _Right. Go give him a reason to put the coat back on and wolf you down._

Wolf down. _He-he._

So she was easily amused. What of it? Smiling now— because scowling took too much effort —she decided to keep poking at whatever misplaced (and likely unintentionally so) goodwill some god had graced her with, and made for the tent.

Only to stop after three steps, head cocked to the side and sharp focus returned with the snap of a twig somewhere off to the left. Not a deer. Not a wolf (proper or otherwise). No boar or bear or other such creature, because all the above fit better into the forest than the crude march of man-feet.

They _tried_ to be careful. Stealthy. But all they managed was to tell her that they were a bunch of clumsy half-wits, long before the forest spat them out.

Hunters. Or at least that's what they tried to be, with how their backs were weighed down by weapons. Some were even silver, if the too bright glint from a blade didn't mislead her, and that made their intent clear. Werewolf hunters. And judging by how their armor creaked like it'd never been worn before, and how pristine everything looked on them, they struggled to share even a single skeever brain between the lot of them.

Sadja admitted that she'd probably made up her mind long before they'd reached the camp. Hadn't done a lot of thinking on it, truth be told. Just kind of decided that that's the way it'd be.

"Help!" she blurted. Fell to the ground. Picked up more dirt there, along with a cut on her hand when she caught her palm on a nick on the splintered bow. That'd been unintentional. Stung a little, too, and got blood everywhere, especially when she slapped herself in the face with it.

"Help! Please!" She added a wail, just as the skeever-brains of newbaked hunters came into the camp, who clearly hadn't expected to find a screaming, bleeding Bosmer. Somewhere behind her, Death's horse gave a nervous snort, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was joining in her charade.

 _You'll get another apple after, promise._

The men, because they had to all be men, froze. Or boys, for oblivion's sake. _Kids._ Nord lads who were about as likely to grow a beard as her.

"It took off!" Sadja pointed back the way Death had come in earlier. Added a decent quiver to her voice, too. Had to sound convincing. Even squeezed out tears, ugly, fat, and wet and _oh boy did she want to laugh instead._ "Took my mate, _please_ you have to help her!"

The lads froze. Stared at her. Stared at the blood most, and then the torn up ground (where she'd fallen), her pack— the mess of the broken off tree branch and gigantic claw marks—

And when one sort of started hurrying her way, a flash of something kind in his eyes, while his friends all started hollering and chasing the way she'd pointed, she shook her head and just kept jabbing.

"I'm fine, I'm fine—" she squeezed through her teeth. "Please, you need to help her—" So he nodded and took off too, leaving behind the soft pops and cracks of their clumsy chase through the forest. When that faded too, Sadja's shoulders came back up, since she'd let them droop, and her spine stiffened.

"You're _welcome,_ " she called after them (not loud enough to hear, of course), certain that she'd just saved their lives. No way this pack of babes'd stood a chance if they'd decided to poke at Death.

Bit like her.

And then she turned about, lifted her chin, and found herself eye to eye with the man who'd worn that wolf coat so exceptionally well.

* * *

 **S** he'd tricked them. Why in Oblivion did she do that? Some nights ago she'd tried to kill him, today she'd stolen his things and sat perched in a tree. And then he'd done various things to her that would piss anyone off. Short of eating her, at least.

And she'd still sent the hunters away.

Caiden lowered the crossbow he'd been holding at the ready, scowling at nothing and everything as he pushed the tent open and stepped outside.

There she was, standing still and staring at him. She had some blood on her – the smell of it setting him a little on edge. Sometimes the smell of blood made him hungry enough to feel like a fucking vampire instead of the monster he was. Which was just another thing he hadn't known about werewolves until he'd become one.

His one eye locked onto her, glanced her up and down, and in half a second took in, again, all there was to see. Including the broken bow.

Caiden folded his arms. His half-animal assessment of _little thief_ hadn't been too far off the mark.

She apparently didn't disagree, as the first words out of her mouth were simply, "You got to be kidding. You're a giant, no?"

Caiden evenly met that continued stare. "No."

"Mh. Guess you couldn't be. Giants _are_ always ugly."

Now it was his turn to blink, if only briefly.

He grunted, and that was it. He kicked some dirt onto what was left of the fire, picked up his horse's gear and went to saddle it. The thief trailed along after him, watching him the entire time.

"Right shitty of you, stepping on it," she remarked, carelessly swinging the snapped half of her bow by her side.

He grunted. Well, she got to the point fast. Had to give her that. Answering her would be complicated, unless he just went with _yes_. Or didn't answer at all, which was his current plan.

Turned out he didn't have to either, because she kept going. Apparently, she was full of questions.

"So what you do, kill other werewolves? You some kind of werewolf-hunting… werewolf?"

Caiden huffed. _Maybe_. It wasn't like he could deny that was practically what he was doing. Or trying to, when he wasn't losing control… and forgetting what he did.

"Grunt, huff, scowl. Your _horse_ is more talkative. Oh," she reached into her pack for something – then remembered there was nothing in it but a hole, all courtesy of him, and frowned with a huff of her own. "You _are_ an arse. You even ate the apple I promised your horse."

He could eat again, too.

"Why'd you find me?" Caiden asked.

She followed him back as he broke down his camp and packed everything away. Quick, methodical, clean. The only proof he was ever there at all was the remains of his campfire. All the rest was neatly condensed and put in his horse's saddlebags.

And the entire time, the little thief hovered around him and watched like a curious cat. More like a Khajiit than a Bosmer. Or maybe Bosmer were like this, too. Damned if he knew.

Finally, she shrugged. "Curiosity."

He threw her a look. "You're lucky you didn't get killed. Twice."

"My luck holds out like that."

He grunted.

She looked at him and pursed her lips, like she was picking up on a pattern. Specifically, the pattern that he didn't talk much. _Good._

Because he was picking up that she talked _too_ much.

With his horse saddled and everything ready, Caiden turned to face her again, still standing there, watching him. Fine. He'd ask, like he knew he had to. Like she was probably waiting for him to.

"Why'd you help me?"

She shrugged again. "You'd eat all those poor stupid little boys. It'd be tragic. All of them put together might've been almost a decent meal for whatever bottomless pit you have in there, though."

 _What?_

Who the fuck was she? And what kind of werewolf hunter was she, to be doing this? Better yet, what kind of _person_ was she? And why was she still hanging around?

"Right," he answered at length. "Thank you."

That was pretty damn flat, even for him. _She just saved you a lot of pain. Do better._

So, after a second, he added, "I'm grateful. Really, I am. But I'd like to know why you actually helped me."

"Do I need a reason?" she asked. Coyly – was she being coy? It was hard to tell. Maybe she really did mean it.

"Everyone has reasons," Caiden replied, his eye not unlocking from her gaze.

"Ah-right," she said thoughtfully. "How about your name?"

He blinked at her. Again. That wasn't a good enough reason. She was dodging again. Either that, or she was just bored and having fun stringing him along, which felt just as likely at this point.

Caiden caught himself pondering the scents coming off her again. Not just hers, which kept preoccupying him, for some reason. He caught a whiff of animals, too. That dog, the one from before. Horse. And – goat, again, like he'd smelled on the wind before. _Goat?_

He didn't have time for this. He had places to be… 'Places' being wherever he'd end up next. No direction whatsoever, aside from _somewhere, not here._ There was no way those hunters were the only ones on his trail, if amateurs like them were so hot on his heels.

She frowned at him then. Less confusion or frustration – a frown about something else. Maybe she didn't like that haggard scowl he wore.

But she wiped that off her face pretty fast and said, "Either words don't come easy for you or you're as tired as you look. Wolfing around takes a lot out of you, does it?"

He grunted again, quieter this time. 'Tired' was one word for it. But that wasn't why he was 'tired' – not the only reason.

"Still need that name for sending all that silver off on a wild guar chase," she prompted. Poking just a little gentler this time, like she finally remembered she was poking someone who turned into a flesh-eating monster.

His name. Fine. Even if he still wasn't really sure what the hell was going on or what this wood elf was thinking.

"Caid," he said at length. Then paused and, after a moment, clarified, "Caiden."

She held up something then, small and wrapped in cloth. At least, it was small to him, or it always had been, when he could touch it. He recognized it instantly and knew he'd already put it back in one of his saddlebags… which she had apparently gotten into in the two seconds he'd turned his back on her.

"Caid," she said like she was testing the name. Then echoed in order, "Caiden. Okay."

He snatched the little object from her, a growl trapped rumbling in his chest. That was enough to startle her into staring at him again. It wasn't just fear, though, even if he did smell that – it was surprise and that same curiosity from before.

She still wasn't out of questions, either. "Why's a werewolf carry a silver trinket?"

Caiden turned the cloth over in his hands, pulled it back just enough to allow himself a tiny glimpse of it again… that silver brooch he used to wear constantly, because he'd rarely let himself _not_ wear what had essentially been his uniform.

The brooch, shaped like a shield, its emblem that snarling wolf with a dagger poised across its neck. The brooch he couldn't touch now with his own skin, because he'd become that damned wolf – only he was avoiding the dagger.

Not like Rosga had done.

Those were memories he didn't need right now. Everything came flooding back, all over again, a flood of emotions and memories that left his edges fraying even worse than before. Not that he'd gotten those stitched at all since it happened. All they did was fray worse.

She rephrased her question. "Caiden…?" she let it hang, asking for more.

Reluctantly, almost reflexively, he answered quietly, "Caiden Voros."

With that, he set his jaw and let the silver brooch slide back into the cloth covering it, then he shoved it in his pocket. Specifically _his_ pocket this time, not the saddlebag.

Turning, he mounted his horse and gave the wood elf one last look. Grateful, like he'd said, but hoping she didn't follow or try to. He didn't need her help and he didn't need a shadow, especially knowing the beast he so unwillingly hosted would gladly devour her if he gave it the chance.

But she stepped back and watched him. "Where you going, Voros?"

Where was he going. Interesting question.

Caiden looked away from her. "I don't know."


	4. A Little Mad

In which Sadja turns her nose up at honest work, and then sticks said nose places it doesn't belong. And Caiden drowns his goodbye to those he loves in blood.

* * *

 **A little Mad**

* * *

 **I** t didn't really heal. The scar. It stuck around, along with a light sting while the sun went up, then down, and the moons loitered in the skies like a pair of fat buttocks.

And so Sadja didn't ever really forget about Caiden Voros and his wolf coat, even when she'd left the forest which he'd been hiding in days ago. Because whenever she hadn't thought of him for a little while, the claw marks he'd left on her chest pinched or itched, and there he was again: snarling, long white fangs bared, and that startling blue eye…

She wondered how he'd lost the other.

Did, in fact, wonder right this moment as she sat cross legged on a barrel, an half eaten apple in her hand, and a quiet, too-early-in-the-morning village center in front of her. Another wolf, maybe, she pondered as she watched a woman move across the square, a tall canister on one shoulder. Milk, probably. Milk'd be nice. She'd not had any for a while. She tilted her head. Kept thinking. Could have also been a hunter and a sharp blade. And had it been the wolf that'd lost it, or the man? She hummed, took a bite from the apple, and then another and another, until she only had the stump left, and was also running out of ideas on how a tall Nord like that could possibly lose one of his blinkers.

 _Baa-aa?_

Her eyes flicked down, to where Sam stood on two legs, his front hooves set against the barrel, and his tongue darting out to lick at empty air. Smiling, she dropped the apple stump on his little nose— a smile that froze when she heard Stendarr growl by her right. The hound stood, his hackles raised, and eyes set on an approaching figure. Though she since she knew the Nordling coming up to her, the smile came back around right quick, and with a wave of her hand, Stendarr's growls tapered off and he sat himself back down.

"Got something for me, Tick?"

Tick, whose real name she did not know, was a handful of summers short from being a man, and then a whole bucket of grains short from ever baking out right. But she liked him alright, especially right now, since she'd been waiting for him to bring an end to her boredom. Along with a cure to the horrible drought in her coin pouch.

Least one of those she blamed on Caiden Voros, on him leaving her down a pack and a bow, and getting all in the way of honest work. Though who'd she been kidding? About the honest work, at any rate. It'd never been meant to last, and she'd have gone and turned her nose up at it regardless. And then stick said nose right into places it didn't belong.

Except even that hadn't worked altogether nicely, because _apparently_ she had finally worn her luck all thin. Well. Bugger that. Maybe Tick had good news, because if she'd had to sit about idly one more day, she'd grow roots. Maybe even sprout shrooms.

 _Bleh. I'd make a terrible tree._

Tick, his eyes never really leaving Sten, in case he had to suddenly bolt and scamper up a pole somewhere, nodded.

"Guild got a contract that sounds just like you," he said, tugging a paper from his belt and offering it to her.

She leaned forward. Snatched it from his fingers. " _Just like me?_ What's that meant to mean? Enlighten me, Tick, what does a _me_ sound like?" Sadja unfolded the paper, scanned the words for things that'd catch her attention.

 _Oh._

"Treasure hunting. Artifacts. All that lot," he put forward.

"Fantastic. I'm in."

* * *

 **A** few days later, everything was normal again. His new normal, which was all wrong.

He'd resumed wandering. Not like there was anything else he could do. Some nights, he let the wolf have its way – other nights, it took over whether he gave it permission or not, and shoved him in some dark recess of his own mind where he couldn't get out.

And sometimes he'd wake up in familiar places. Places that held memories for him, usually good ones: a creek he and his little sister used to play in, their favorite spot in the woods… Or sometimes they _weren't_ good memories. Like the house of a man who'd tried to stalk her once. Caiden had ended that _real_ fast. Hopefully the wolf hadn't made Caiden eat that bastard, but he couldn't quite feel sorry for him if it had.

Which wasn't really something he should think, no matter who it was.

But it started to change for the worse. Now and then, when he awoke, he found himself looking down from, for instance, a hill behind the house of someone he cared about. Didn't matter who it was. Maybe someone he'd helped once, maybe someone related to someone he had feelings about.

It was the morning he woke up with the home of Rosga's family square in his vision that he decided he couldn't live like this.

Caiden gathered what little he still owned, a pile that seemed to get smaller every night, and threw it into his horse's saddlebags yet again as he picked a direction and rode. The only requirement now was to keep riding. No matter how badly the wolf wanted out, he couldn't let it, not until he got some distance from anywhere he'd ever considered home.

He couldn't risk hurting anyone he cared about. True, he shouldn't risk hurting _anyone._ But _it_ seemed keen on staying near anyone he'd ever held emotions for, good _or_ bad, and it could take that shit to Oblivion.

Along the way, he took a brief detour – back to that forest where he'd lost his humanity.

A cool Skyrim evening had since settled over the grimly familiar woods. They looked foreboding as ever, but this time, they didn't hold mystery, fear, or any kind of danger. Not to him.

Or, at least, they didn't _conceal_ anything. He was privy to every tiny sound, every scent. He walked in knowing full well every single creature within a good several hundred feet of him, and none so much as gave him pause.

Now the only thing that he had to fear was himself.

Shortly after he and the other Silver Daggers had been turned, werewolf hunters crawled all over these woods, drawn like flies to a corpse. Caiden could still see signs of their passage everywhere. Footprints of heavy boots, the clear path of snapped branches and broken twigs. He even found a few stray bits and strings of cloth from where their cloaks had gotten hung on branches and they'd simply tugged them back off. It was hard to mistake a patch of blood red thread dangling from the fresh green pine needles. And their scents were everywhere.

 _Rookies._

Skarvald's scent was almost gone. Almost. But he caught a faint whiff of _son of a bitch_ right around that tree where he found what had been some broken links from his chain, scattered in the brown pine-tags littering the forest floor.

So now he had Skarvald's scent, and that was all he needed. Everything else he'd find here, if he could even find the scents of the rest of Skarvald's pack, was unimportant.

If his wolf wanted to hunt and stalk people he held any emotions for, he'd just have to give it a target.

Movement.

A twig snapped, not too far off. The wind brought him a scent, one strong enough to overpower the sharp tang of pine all around him.

It was a scent he thought he knew. He didn't know how, or when, and he certainly didn't know why. But he _knew_ it. It set his heart pounding, made him suck in too sharp a breath. The scent roused feelings in him he knew and he missed, brought back memories…

Memories of Plexaura – his little sister.

His mind raced. He'd left his horse on the opposite side of the forest from where the scent came. She shouldn't find it. If she did, she'd know. And she couldn't know – he couldn't imagine her knowing this. Knowing what he'd become.

Turning, he went just a little deeper into the forest, crouching low in the underbrush, or at least as low as he could. Then he paused and saw how short some of the younger trees were around him.

Gods, he was too fucking tall.

So he went prone.

"I'm tellin' you, miss, he's dead," said a voice quickly approaching through the trees. Caiden wasn't sure who it was. Maybe one of the Jarl's men?

"Show me the body and I'll believe you," Plexaura retorted, hotly as ever. She stepped into the clearing, pushing some of her fiery red hair away from her face from where the wind had blown it.

She looked the same as ever: short, especially for a Nord, because she liked to say Caiden sucked every last bit of height out of the family tree for himself and left none for her. Same flaming hair, same green eyes, same simple and effective clothing… a shirt and pants instead of a dress, because dresses always did bother her.

And she had that same look of determination on her face that Caiden knew so well. When Plexaura wanted something, she went after it. Right now, she wanted to know if he was still alive.

Caiden swallowed, not moving a muscle. His fingers twitched, the wolf gnawed at the base of his skull as emotions welled in his chest and sank in his gut all at the same time, conflicted – a thousand feelings at once.

He curled his hands into fists and watched as Plexaura looked over the clearing where he and Skarvald's pack had fought. Behind her, a watchman in a full-face helm emerged from the forest, loud and certainly not at home here. He folded his arms and eyed her, seeming patient but mildly annoyed, while she crouched low and tried to inspect every inch of the area.

"We don't always find bodies," the watchman pointed out. "This was werewolves, too, and those don't tend to leave 'em."

Plexaura cringed, and Caiden felt tension and guilt pull him from head to toe. He set his jaw, hard, and wondered just what the hell he was doing.

He was torturing her. His little sister, the one person he had, the person he'd taken care of his whole life and never once wanted to hand those responsibilities to someone else. No matter how annoying she could be, the love always outweighed that. Because she'd needed _him,_ not anyone else. There hadn't been any parents for either of them to turn to.

But what was the alternative? Walking out, telling her he was still alive, and admitting he was a werewolf now? Telling her he had to leave, that she couldn't follow him?

She wouldn't listen. She'd follow, she'd get herself hurt, maybe even killed. If not by him, then some other beast. He couldn't allow that.

Plexaura found the chain links, the ones behind the tree. Carefully picking up the shattered things, she turned them over in her hands and frowned, thoughtful and concerned. She threw the watchman a look – he was busy staring off into the forest, not even watching her, being an irresponsible asshole – and tucked the few pieces of broken chain into her pack.

Caiden narrowed his eye. _What're you onto, Plex?_

"Alright," she said to the watchman as she nudged her way past him and back out to where they'd come from, pushing some prickly pine branches out of her face as she went. "Fine, I'm convinced. Let's go."

The watchman shrugged, turning to trail along after her.

For a long while, Caiden didn't move. He waited until every sound of them had faded away, well into the distance, before he finally dared to sit up again, brushing himself off… and trying not to think. Trying not to feel.

Monsters couldn't afford feelings.

So, turning, he started back toward where he'd left his horse at the far side of the forest, a good hike away.

And he almost got there, almost left, before he heard something that stopped him in his tracks.

Combat.

Caiden heard the cacophony of violent chaos somewhere in the distance, but not too far. At least, not to his ears the way they heard now. He froze, focusing, listening… The wind had changed, so he wouldn't get scents from that direction anymore. But the noise came from behind him – the direction Plexaura had gone.

And there was no mistaking her voice when he heard her shout.

Bandits and cutthroats of every kind had come to fill in the confusion Skarvald and his pack had left in their wake – they'd come to take advantage of the way the werewolves had left the local watchmen scared and scattered. It wasn't a stretch of the imagination to think Plexaura had been ambushed. Maybe by assholes looking for something a little different than goods to steal.

Caiden didn't stop to think about it. He threw the fur from his shoulders, unbuckled his armor, tore off his sword belt – and woke the beast inside him.

It was the only way. As long as he could stay in control, and as long as he could keep Plexaura from seeing his face, he could do this. Even if she _did_ see his missing eye and know, he couldn't just ride away when she was in danger.

The change didn't take long. It rarely did when he gave in, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

Hopefully no one had heard him scream.

Caiden arose, fur bristling, and knocked his shed gear aside with a massive paw before he dropped to all fours, swiveling his head toward the commotion, ears pointed dead ahead. He didn't waste a second, clawed hands and inhuman feet alike devouring the forest that lay between him and whatever was happening to his little sister.

He ducked between the larger trees, effortlessly knocked branches aside with his bulk, feeling the twigs and saplings brush at the thick fur all over his body as they gave way. He left stealth far behind. Now he crashed through the forest like a juggernaut, destroying anything in his path and trampling it to the earth. He didn't have a second to waste, and he _wanted_ them to hear him coming.

He heard Plexaura cry out.

And – before he knew what he was doing – he threw his head back to let out a furious howl, even as he ran as hard as he could go.

In answer, silence fell around him for miles. The sudden silence of primal terror, of fear in its purest form.

What power monsters wielded. _Shit,_ he hated it.

When he broke through the last remaining trace of the forest, devastating a small tree as he barreled right over it, he found a frozen battlefield standing before him. Frozen and staring in his direction, faces pale with horror. The werewolves were supposed to be gone.

Caiden assessed the situation in a second. Five bandits. Lightly armored. Lightly _armed._ Two had bows. The rest had various melee weapons – only one with a shield. And none of them had silver.

They wouldn't be able to hurt him.

Easy. Quick.

 _Don't let her see your eye._

Any horses must've run, because they were gone. The watchman was sprawled out not far off, two arrows in his back. Plexaura lay on the ground, where she'd been wrestling with some bandit who'd pinned her.

His lips twitched, peeled back over his massive daggers for teeth. A growl erupted from his throat, shredded the silence, and swiftly escalated to a deafening roar that shook the world like the rage of a volcano.

Caiden surged forward before any of them had time to move. He cleared the distance between them in one bound, jaws open, his single raging eye set on the man who scrambled to get off Plexaura and face Death.

Slamming into him, Caiden had the bandit's throat in his jaws before he knew he had. And he bit down before he knew he had, hard enough to twist the man's neck and snap it like a twig, hot blood flooding between his teeth and rushing down his chin.

With a casual fling of his head, he threw the broken corpse aside and stood up all at once, turning to face the next one. He tried to keep his right side toward where Plexaura lay – motionless, petrified. Staring at the monster with blood dripping off its face, that for some reason didn't turn and take her along with them.

The two bandits with bows loosed at him. One missed entirely, the other arrow Caiden didn't bother with. It landed square in his shoulder with a meaty _thunk,_ but he'd already picked his next target, and that arrow didn't slow him down. He barely felt it. All it did was stutter his endless growling for half a second, then kick it up even louder and angrier.

A second bandit fell from one hard swipe of his claws, sending him sprawling. Caiden heard a thick crunch of bone, so loud even soft flesh could barely muffle it. It shouldn't have been satisfying, but it was.

The bandits were starting to scatter, turn tail and run like a bunch of scared deer. Smart.

 _Good._

But he didn't stop. He'd forgotten how, with the taste of blood in his mouth. Another went down, slashed all the way to his spine and left paralyzed in the dirt, a twitching, wailing heap just waiting to bleed out. He whirled on a fourth, caught up to him in a few strides, and took him down with another swipe. That only left one.

One already running, trying to escape. Caiden wouldn't let him.

He didn't get far before Caiden was upon him, and with a rake of his hand and a pounce, he was atop him.

Then came the wrath.

He couldn't stop it. The rage, the hunger. His massive paws worked before his eye, out of his control. They ripped and tore, claws slashing the man open while he still screamed. Cracking into his chest and filling the air with the delicious stink of a fresh kill.

Caiden felt sick, only he didn't. All he felt was _hunger._

For half a second, he hesitated. Wrestling. Chest heaving, hackles standing on end, clawed fingers twitching as they dripped hideous loops of thick blood.

Had to stop. Had to think. Couldn't give in. Couldn't _do this._ Not ever – but especially _not_ _ **now.**_

 _Fuck—_

Plexaura was behind him. He could hear her breathing, even more so when he twitched his ears toward her. And the frantic racing of her terrified heart, if he focused hard enough. He needed to run.

He couldn't.

His teeth sank into the rent-open chest of his last victim. Crunched the ribs, quickly gnawed down to the organs. Stuck his disgusting muzzle into that disgusting corpse and started devouring it, greedily gulping the great chunks of gore that slid easily down his throat, not even having to chew. Organs. Muscle. Blood. Bone. Didn't matter. He ate all of it, and he only wanted more.

And he ripped the heart out with his teeth and threw his head back, all but swallowing it whole.

Hunger. Rage. Blood – everywhere. Tasted it, smelled it. It tasted _good._

 _Gods DAMN it!_

Gods damn _him._

He fought, felt that terrible desire howling somewhere deep inside him, and he did everything in his power to force it back into any kind of cage. Didn't matter how long it held – just had to be long enough to get him out of here.

 _So hungry…_

Caiden got to his feet, his growls stopping then starting again, stuttering and arguing with themselves each breath. Wanting to turn into whines. Focus – he had to _focus._ Had to _think._

He turned his face away from where he still heard Plexaura breathing, staring, watching no doubt in endless horror. Wanted to check on her so bad. Make sure she was okay. Couldn't. Monsters couldn't do that. Couldn't afford love. Didn't deserve it, either.

She'd never forget this. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted. But at least she didn't know it was him. Maybe that counted for something.

Right. No. No, it didn't count for shit.

He _did_ whine. Whined, then growled again and couldn't stop. Felt nothing but hate – hate and _hunger._ He dropped onto all fours again, paws pounding furiously at the earth. Wanted to get somewhere – didn't matter where. Somewhere. Anywhere. Not _here._

And he went ripping off toward the forest where he'd lost everything, not daring to look back.

* * *

 **E** ver since the day she'd found a book about some misunderstood, rakish young Imperial who'd ventured deep into forbidden temples to obtain unthinkable treasures (and rescue princesses and whatnot), Sadja had been quite taken by anything old and buried and sometimes even good as forgotten.

Like the item on her shopping list, some _impossible_ to find thing buried under centuries of _whoops, where'd I put that again?_ Or so she'd been told. It'd left a trail though. Everything did, and this one had taken her on a ride out of the Rift, leaving Skyrim behind, and a long stonesthrow into Cyrodiil— where that dashing, treasure hunting Imperial from her book had spelunked in caves filled to the brim with sparkling gold. She still had the book. It was earmarked and its pages were stained, but sometimes she'd dig it out of Debby's saddle bags and read it under a night full of stars and moons and boredom.

Tonight wasn't one of those nights though. Tonight, she had a sky covered in a bubbling cover of clouds. And boredom? She'd left that behind when she'd spotted Cheydinhal, a city that sat so close to the Morrowind border, it wasn't all too certain where it belonged. Or who to. Dunmer? Imperials? A Nord here and there?

All of which she cared very little about while she ducked through thick shadows, so quiet she'd put the average Khajiit to shame (or so she liked to tell herself). The trail she'd found ended here, at a library attached to some pointy-toed noble's manor. A library that, she'd found out while casing the place while the sun'd still been up, had the local mages come and go like ducklings waddling to the pond with all the bread crumbs thrown in by some old, wizened lady.

Sadja didn't much care for mages. Or their magic. She got along with what she'd been gifted with, some affinity or the other with things earthy and woodsie, but the arcane? Brrr. It never sat right with her, how it made the underside of her skin crawl and made the air taste funny.

On the other hand, all those scholars loitering about the place, meant that whatever trinket waited at the end of that trail, wasn't likely to be just some fancy dinner plate, but something a great deal more exciting. She clung on to that excitement, let it reel her in like some invisible thread to follow as she reached the library to scale its wall and slip onto a small balcony poised above a well tended garden.

So what'd it be?

Sadja's mind skipped off ahead while her fingers pinched a set of picks from her belt. In the tension wrench went and the hook followed— maybe some enchanted blanket that shushed babes to sleep through the whole night? _Click._ Or how about a goblet that'd never empty, refill itself with whatever you'd like? _Click-Click._

Inside, the dark had to cope with candles, their light bouncing off polished walls. So Sadja took her time and she waited, kept both ears out for anything resembling a footfall, and her heart from galloping off in excitement. Though her mind, that kept wandering.

A bag of unending marbles? Sadja snorted. That'd be fun.

She slipped into the library. Padded quietly along the hall— slow where the ground was just a lot of stone— swift where they'd thrown carpets over it— What about the softest _ever_ pillow?

No way she'd deliver that once she found it. She'd keep it. Forever.

When a guard got in her way (because they were inconsiderate like that), she tucked herself into a particularly thick shadow and counted goats leaping over imaginary fences while she waited for him to move on. And by the time she got to the books, and found the aisle the trail had led her to, she'd almost gotten bored again. Except then she got frustrated, since apparently the book she'd come for had to be on the top most shelf.

Sadja craned her neck up. Stared at the bound spines sorted in there, then left and right.

 _Bugger._

A ladder stood some ways off. It had wheels and that'd make noise if she tried to move it, which'd either be a whole lot of fun, or a great deal of pain. So she climbed again, though this time from shelf to shelf, rather than up a wall. Careful, too, because she didn't want to knock off any of the other books, setting her feet down slowly and gently and pulling herself ever upwards with the patience of a lazy mouser that knew she'd get fed at home anyway. Eventually, she reached the ceiling, where no one'd bothered cleaning the cobwebs that tickled at her forehead. Oh— and her prize.

"Hello," she told the red spine and grabbed for it. "fancy seeing you here."

The book was heavy and thick, and as she pulled it away from its friends, a whole lot of dust came right with it to tickle her nose. And then the shelf came off.

Sadja barely had time to tuck the book against her side, when she and all the other tomes tore free, tumbling to the ground in an avalanche of paper, dust, and Bosmer. The Bosmer at least landed on her feet (somewhat), except she also bumped into the _next_ bookshelf, which groaned and leaned and then went to shed its load, too.

"Ah, shit."

She climbed over the piles of books. Slipped on one, tearing pages off it as she went, until finally clearing the papery rubble. Just in time, too.

A door (she'd been a good thief and closed it behind her when she'd come into the room) flung open. Or tried to, because the wedge she'd shoved under it made it catch and grate. And while the guardsman struggled to squeeze through, making all manners of noises as he did, she took off with the book under her arm. This section of the library had big windows. Pretty ones. All blue and green and whatnot, and she figured it'd be gorgeous in here when the sun hit the glass just right. And then _she_ hit the glass just right, snatching up a paperweight off a desk pushed to a wall, and lopping it through the pretty depiction of some God or the other having a go at another God.

The pane shattered, and Sadja went through.

* * *

 **S** he didn't stop until she'd cleared the city. Just kept walking— briskly, though not running, because that'd draw attention where she needed none —the itch of danger at her heels and her lips pulling up in a grin ever so often. A grin that stuck around all the way to the dirt road snaking away from the city gates, leading her to an Inn where she'd booked lodging for the night, plus a decent stable for Debby and Sam.

Between the city and the Inn, where the night was thickest, the grin died. A sudden chill nipped at her spine. Made her stop in her tracks and turn in a circle. The chill spread, turned to a flare of alarm in her chest, and she froze. There'd been a shadow there. Off by that tree line, which pulled together like a jagged wall of pitch black. And yet something even _darker_ had just moved between them. Dark and massive and—

Nah.

Couldn't be.

She sniffed. Narrowed her eyes. Told her heart off for getting thrown into disarray like she was a rabbit, and the whole world was just one big, bad wolf, and whipped back around to the Inn.

And okay. Then she might have jogged a little.

So what.

* * *

 **C** aiden hadn't stopped running for the longest time.

He'd barely stopped to rest, and he hadn't once slept. Not even for an hour. Hadn't stopped to think, either. Now and then, he'd made himself turn human again, sometimes with too much effort. Whenever he had, he'd rode his horse too hard and too far. Worked it about half to death before he realized, until he'd caught it staring at him with confused loyalty bordering on concern, one morning when he went to mount it again. That had made him stop and spend too long giving it rest and care, because that horse was the only friend he had, and he'd almost let his broken spirit break his one companion, too.

But the hunger never left. He had felt, and still did, like he was going insane. He'd thought about killing himself, or at least trying to find some way to do that, more than once.

He needed a fucking drink.

He hadn't gotten any. All he'd done was run, never stop, never look back. Never get near civilization. No idea where he was going. Especially not when the wolf took over, made it impossible to think. Which was hard, even now.

Then, one morning, he'd awoken with his nose full of a familiar scent. Familiar like an acquaintance. It had only brought a few memories. Silver, poison, stolen clothes – and hunters thrown off his trail.

Memories of a little thief.

It hadn't stopped. Every morning, he would wake up and the scent was there again. Not _the_ scent, _her_ scent. Shit if he knew why. But the wolf had kept following it. Even when he'd thought he was in control, every time he turned, he had found the little thief's trail again. And it interested him. It'd given him something to follow. Something that… mattered?

Why did it matter? She didn't matter to him. Didn't mean a thing. She didn't have any answers, and the wolf followed emotions. There weren't any emotions here.

Then why had he followed her? Why was he _still_ following her?

He still hadn't stopped. It had continued for days, until he found her. He'd watched her from afar now and then, his eye always locked only on her – her and her animals. Her friends, apparently. Steadily, he'd learned they seemed like the only friends she had. The only _real_ ones.

And now he was here.

He watched her again as she walked back toward the inn. In good spirits, no less. Grinning now and then. Caiden huffed, too quietly for her to hear. He walked on his hind feet, like a man, the way he preferred to walk even in this form. Silently, he followed along with her from his place in the dark, lost in the cold shadows of the woods.

He shouldn't have stared, but he did, and he didn't break it for a second. Watching her, tracking her every step and hungrily prowling after her on silent, padded feet.

But then the little thief stopped. The smile left her face. She turned, looked around.

She looked right at him.

Caiden froze, stared right back at her. He didn't know if she could see him. But whether she could or whether she sensed a monster staring at her, something made her pick up the pace and not stop.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Caiden turned and strode off into the darkness once more. He was far enough from Skyrim now that maybe he could dare to show his face in civilization, if it even was his face anymore.

And he still needed that drink.


	5. Queen of the Gobs

In which Sadja contemplates royalty, and Caiden raises a drink to the next drink and then that one to the one after that.

* * *

 **Queen of the Gobs**

* * *

 **T** averns and the like were good for three things: Finding marks. Finding drinks. And sticking tiny knife ears like her into a crowd made of tall folks, making it difficult to find _her._

This one though, this squat place hanging off Cheydinhal's coattails like dried mud? Horrid. For one, it was half empty. Sadja'd had the pick of real estate when she'd come in, and everyone had _looked,_ even if only because that hound that'd been lying motionless in the corner had suddenly gotten up and trotted up to her, right before he'd escorted her to the back of the wide hall. She sat there now, perched on a high bench behind a small, round table tucked into a corner.

So she liked corners, alright? Who didn't? Who'd _really_ rather sit with their back to everything? Miss out on all the highlights and on anything even remotely important, like who came and went, or how the Nord woman at the counter was horribly bored. Or that each of her tits were by a great deal bigger than this Bosmer's head.

Sadja scoffed.

Oh, and not to forget the 'ale'. She pulled a face at the tankard (which, by the by, was way too large for her, and roused an odd urge to bathe in it). Though, to be fair, that was about all this backwash was good for. Shit tasted as if someone'd mixed dirt into water, then let it stand next to the actual ale barrel so it could at least _pretend_ to belong.

Sighing, she stuck her nose back into the volume she'd stolen, and promptly pulled a face at _that_ , too.

Turned out, the book was just a collection of journals, the ramblings and sketches of all manners of different explorers and scholars that had one thing in common: An adoration for things they probably should have left alone.

"Maybe I ought to write one of those, too, mh?" She wiggled on her seat, stuck her leg out a little to reach down from the very high bench, and touched the crest of Stendarr's warm shoulders with a bare foot. Her boots were buried under his head and paws. He sighed. It was a dignified sort of sigh, just a little chiding, really, and Sadja smirked.

"What, it'd be fun. But by the Eight, I do hope they'd stick me into a book with an actual _index._ Will you look at this?"

 _Grrmrph-huff_

She kept turning the pages, a little faster this time, because she hadn't come looking for a fabled dress meant to turn even the most sturdy man into a delicate damsel. Hilarious as that'd be.

"No page numbers. No order to things. Here, this page and that page, they aren't even written by the same person, and that's not a map, that's someone spilling their bloody drink."

Flip-flip-flip, she went. Sometimes more careful, either because she thought this was it, or her eyes caught on something amusing. When she accidentally tore a page free (because the book was _terribly_ bound), she winced and felt just a little bothered. Didn't matter how shit the book was, it was still a _book,_ and those deserved some form of respect.

* * *

 **S** he ended up finding the information she'd disrespected a whole lot of other books for at the same time Stendarr lifted his head, letting out a quiet, deep growl.

 _Look out,_ it said, meant for her ears alone, and she could feel him brush against her ankle, the whole hound vibrating and sending the growl rattle up her leg and into her heart.

Her eyes flicked up, right to the door. It cracked open suddenly, swung inwards, and had her grip the book tight and make ready to flip it shut and yank it off the table.

She'd sit on it, if she had to. Pull her boots on after. Make herself small (ha) and invisible, and slip past the guards when…

 _What._

It wasn't the city watch. Which'd been ridiculous anyway, since they never _did_ expect a thief to hang around in the open, so close to where they'd committed their crime.

No.

The boots that came thumping in belonged to a Nord so tall, he needed to duck his head or he'd bump the doorframe. _Thump-knock-yes-hello,_ that'd say _._ And last time she'd seen him, he'd just shed his wolf coat.

Stendarr growled louder. Got the whole table to shake.

"Shush."

Sadja swallowed. Found her hand at her chest, scratching at the fabric of her shirt over the scar, and stared, unblinking, at Death in his people skin.

He looked rundown. Like he'd spent too much time out under the shadows of trees, instead of wandering cobbled streets. His clothes, and the leathers over them, weren't exactly falling apart though, and the rest of him was in order, too. Like the beard that tried to cover his jaw, which he seemed to keep well under control.

As if he didn't fancy growing fur.

And when he paused, stopping just past the dirty carpet by the door, and turned his one eye towards her, she almost squeaked.

* * *

 **H** er scent led just inside, and there she was. The little thief and her bristling hound that was working hard to degrade his already precarious opinion of dogs.

Not that it was the dog's fault.

The hound was busy glaring at him like he could see right through him to the beast lying dormant underneath. Dormant for now, at least.

Caiden threw the both of them a brief look, then focused his gaze elsewhere. Namely to the bar. But just because it had his eye didn't mean it had his attention - he kept listening closely. Just in case.

Something in him asked, _Why the hell am I here?_

He was here to get a drink. That much was simple. But he'd picked this particular tavern in this particular town, and he'd be damned if he knew why. The _wolf_ knew why, but he didn't.

And why the wolf was so infatuated with this elf, he had no idea. Then again, maybe it didn't have any idea why he was so infatuated with alcohol.

Caiden took a seat at the bar, ordered a drink with some of the meager coin he had left, and sat there in absolute silence until a tankard was pushed under his nose. Not a very big tankard, either. Looked like he'd be buying two. Or three. Or more. Couldn't be sure yet.

Maybe he should talk to her. The idea briefly wandered into his mind, and he pushed it away. Why? So she could ask more questions he wouldn't, or couldn't, answer? Not like _she_ knew why his personal demon wanted to follow her like it was jealous of that hound sitting at her feet. She didn't have any answers, and neither did he.

Instead, he did what he always did: said nothing… And drank.

* * *

 **H** e'd seen her. Had to have, because he'd looked right at her, right before he'd planted himself at the bar. Without even as much as a second glance into her direction. Like him being here, in Cheydinhal— in the same shitty inn as her— not even a stone throw from where she sat— was perfectly normal, and why was she getting worked up over that again?

Sadja sniffed, and she set her foot against Stendarr. He was growling still, a quiet steady _Rrrrrrr,_ that only ceased once she pushed his big, stupid head towards the ground and muttered, "Down boy."

And so she went back to reading.

She flipped the book open again, right where she'd left off, and with her finger tracing the words on by one, tried to make sense of what she'd found.

 _Was it him?_ That itch right behind her. The whisper of danger that'd been nipping at her neck. Had all of that been him, and not some figment of her imagination?

 _Focus._

Eventually, when she got her mind to resort itself, the words began to fit together into something meaningful. First of, she wasn't looking for just _one_ thing, but a three-piece set, which came together as the 'Ruby Vow'.

Noted.

Her eyes flicked up. Her attention, too, and both caught on the Nord's wide back. He'd just set down a tankard. Pushed it to his right, and immediately gone for a second.

She scrunched up her nose. Kept staring. Thinking. He _must_ have been the one. The one that'd sent goosebumps crawling up her arms and making her jump at shadows she'd thought had moved.

Like earlier. That shifting form in the dark, behind those trees, the one she'd thought she'd just imagenined.

 _Work._

 _Ah. Right._

The items had odd names. 'Decadence.' 'Cradlesong.' 'The Supper.' Whereas the latter made her stomach rumble a bit, since she'd forgotten all about dinner.

And all of it, the whole 'Ruby Vow' collection, was trouble. Naturally. Whatever ever wasn't? So, being reasonable, the adventurous mer who'd originally found them, had hidden them. Just in case some _other_ adventurous mer— present company definitely included —decided to go looking.

Trouble. _Psht_. Trouble liked looking for more trouble, and trouble _paid,_ so Sadja kept reading. There were maps, too. Hand-drawn, tiny things, and none very useful, because they might as well have pointed her right into Oblivion with how vague they were.

All but one. Sadja hunched a little closer over the book. Drew her knees up, toes wiggling, and tried not to get too excited, because some of this was making sense.

 _Cradlesong,_ as it turned out, was an individual two-piece deal. A box looking thing with a dryad holding a harp painted on the side, and a key. Though never-mind that, because what got her wiggling about like a puppy having its favourite toy dangled in front of its nose, was that she knew where the key had been stashed.

…

 _Shit._

Sadja scoffed. Yeah. She knew where the key was. Knew a little too well, what with how she'd turned down a job there, half a year ago. Unrelated to this _Cradlesong_ , mind you. And that wasn't a thing she did often, turn down jobs, but ho-ly-shit did she not fancy navigating an abandoned mine dug leagues deep into a gloomy mountain filled to the brim with goblins.

" _What, you scared of little gobs now?"_ they'd asked her, big, fat grins on their big, fat lips. Cunts. All of 'em. Not even they'd gone in though. Just laughed and laughed and laughed, and the job'd been forgotten. Wouldn't have been worth it anyway.

But this?

She sighed, sunk back in her seat until her back hit the wall, and said, "Little," out loud.

True. Goblins weren't exactly large in stature. Not overly impressive, overall. Though turned out they _still_ had an inch or so on her.

"Whatcha think, Sten?"

 _Huff._

"I could shave." She ran a hand through her hair, which was just about long enough to have her fingers catch on the way. "Stop washing for a week or two. Or three."

 _Whine._

"By then, they might not be able to tell. Maybe even crown me queen, mh? Queen of the gobs."

Which was all real ridiculous, she had to admit. Another thing she didn't do often. Admit to being batty, but this time around it didn't matter what rabbit hole she sent her imagination down into. It never turned out well.

She might as well go poke another werewol—

Sadja froze. Blinked. Leaned forward again, her heels snapping back, and looked to the bar, where the tall Nord, that Voros fellow, sat in the company of four empty mugs.

"Do werewolves eat goblins, you think?"

* * *

 **S** he pulled her boots out from under Sten, slipped them on her feet, and told the hound with a finger wagging pointedly into his direction: "Behave." Since the last thing she needed was for him to attach himself to the Nord with his teeth.

Sten huffed.

"Good boy."

Then she tucked the book under and arm and bumbled over to the Nord. At first, she drifted to his left, where he hadn't crowded the counter with empty mugs, but as she came up behind him, she took a sharp turn right.

You didn't approach a wild beast from its blind side, lest you wanted to spook it. More so if that beast had long teeth, or the potential to them anyway.

 _Clack-click-_ Sten's paws followed her all the way, right up until she scaled the high bar chair with the grace of a drunken cat, and made room for herself by shoving the empty bath-tubs-for-mugs out of the way.

Sten's shoulder bumped into her leg as he sat very close. His ears were flicked back. His hackles raised and bristling. And his eyes dead-set on the Nord.

"Hi," she said and dumped the book on the counter with a thump. Propped an elbow up on it, and watched how he turned his head just ever so slightly to glance at them. First at her, which got his brows to knit in a scowl, and then at Sten. Who, apparently, was a lot more worthy of his attention, because man and hound locked eyes and wouldn't stop staring.

And because he clearly had no manners and didn't seem interested in returning the greeting, she went on ahead at studying him. His gear was showing a great deal of wear and tear, though he kept it in working order, no matter how much it frayed. He looked a little gaunt, too, she noted. Not haggard or thin, no-sir, but just bone with a lot of muscle over it, and cheekbones sharp enough to look like they'd slice her.

Though the dark bruising under his eyes (even the one with the patch), told it best. Not enough sleep. Not enough _rest_ at all, and the cheap piss-water he was drinking wasn't about to fill whatever holes life had dug into him.

So she said, all honest like, because this Bosmer never minced her words, thank you very much: "You look like shit."

His eye cut to her. His brow slanted dangerously, and his lips twitched into a hard, downward slanted line. That got her gut pinching a little and her jaw to flex, and Sten let out a quiet rumble.

"Worse than last time we met, when you were about to pounce those milk-drinkers for hunters," she added, and while he was scowling at her, she dug around in her pockets.

Out came a handful of coins. Good as her last, too, but she'd worry about that later.

"You hungry? I'm hungry." She placed the first coin on the counter. Stacked the second on it. Then the third. "Want to find out if their food 's as bad as the drink? Or you into jugging watered down piss? I swear I won't judge if you are."

More scowls.

"What you say we try their stew. Hard to mess that up, haven't seen a place that makes bad _stew._ " She kept stacking coins until she had enough for her abandoned drink, and two heaping servings of whatever they had bubbling in the large pot over the fire. "Yet."

Sadja nudged the stunted tower of coins over the counter, navigating it carefully through the empty mugs.

"What's your name again? Soros, was it?"

His stare bunched up on itself and he blinked, and she thought he even had his breathing stall there for a beat, so she gave him a one shouldered shrug and a hint of a grin.

"What, you look sore, mh? Say—"

* * *

"— **y** ou looking for work?"

Caiden paused at that. Finally. On the verge of getting up and walking away, he hesitated for half a second. The little thief – what the hell was her name, anyway? – seemed to notice, judging from the look in her eyes. He got the sudden feeling that wasn't a good thing.

"No," was his initial answer. But the smell of the stew got his attention as it was brought out and set under their noses, the thief's coins promptly swept off the bar.

And Caiden hesitated again. His stomach tightened in protest against a diet of booze and human flesh every time he lost control, and he glanced at the food, the scowl on his face again darkening worse.

She waited. At least, she waited until he turned to the food, picked up the provided spoon, and started eating.

Then the little thief said, absently fingering a page of the book she seemed so preoccupied with, "It'll be exciting. Dangerous. Lots of thrills."

Caiden grunted and kept eating. He had enough thrills _existing_ the way he was now, didn't need more.

"Might get myself hurt," she tried. Poking at him, trying to get him to come along. She was clever, he'd hand her that.

But he grunted again. _Don't really care._ She'd made it apparent she didn't mind potential for getting herself hurt, loosing silver arrows at werewolves. And having no backup plan when he'd been two heartbeats away from eating her whole.

No backup plan, at least, until that hound came up with one. Not that it would've stopped him, if he'd really wanted to eat her. Lucky for her, something had made him not do it.

That hound, in the meantime, was still staring at him. Sitting close at her legs, bristling… and looking like it wanted to growl so badly it was growling without making a sound.

Caiden shot the dog another glare, an _audible_ growl rumbling in his chest. The dog's ears went flat, and he shrank his aggressive stance down half an inch or so, but he refused to budge.

Yeah. He was a good dog.

"Theeere… will be food," the little thief offered, sounding a bit too coy for his tastes.

Caiden glanced at her again. Huffed.

"Food you don't got to pay for. _Good_ food, 'cause I'll cook it."

Bosmer cooking? He'd never had it. Then again, he'd take anything over the nothing he had now.

He rumbled a pensive _grrm_ , and that was all.

The little thief's mouth twitched. Caiden caught it in the corner of his eye, and it prompted him to turn and look at her again… especially since he'd long since finished his stew. No need to keep staring into the empty bowl.

"You good at fighting goblins?" she asked. But her tone said something else: she _knew_ he was good at fighting goblins. Someone his size and carrying a sword and shield probably couldn't necessarily be _bad_ at fighting something he could send flying with one sharp kick.

And because she didn't seem to know how to stop talking, she went on while she shamelessly let her honey-colored eyes study him up and down, "Whatever gave you all these scars was bigger than a goblin, mh? Goblin couldn't even reach above your—" she paused – her eyes did, too – and then her gaze and mouth both abruptly changed tracks, "hip."

 _Right._ Caiden didn't say a word.

Maybe he _should_ help her. Wasn't like he'd been doing any good for anyone, not for quite a while now. Wandering, brooding, drinking, following what was starting to seem like a cold trail – and trying to avoid anyone who might have the smallest shred of feelings left for him.

He threw another look at his empty bowl. If nothing else, the food would be worth it. For days now he'd kept what little coin he still had and used it exclusively to buy drinks. Whatever other food he needed, he found in the wilds, between his own foraging and hunting and the wolf's… rampages.

Then there were those fraying edges of his, the ones he'd decided could only be mended now by one thing: vengeance.

A vengeance he was still trying to carry out. And, frankly, not doing an impressive job. Every time he tried to start tracking, find Skarvald's shitty scent again, it was like Skarvald had never existed. Caiden would know that scent anywhere, the scent with all his hatred trained upon it - but where the hell Skarvald was now, he had no idea.

The one scent he'd picked up recently was another one of the Silver Daggers… and he'd managed to lose that trail, too.

He wasn't used to tracking like this. There were too many scents, _everything_ smelled so strong he could taste it - and that made it almost impossible to focus on just one.

Although that did make him wonder why was he always able to focus so intently, so instantly, on this little thief's scent whenever he picked it up. That alone made something in him, probably that insatiable monster, tell him he should go ahead and help her.

But he didn't want to sink to working for food. Being some hired sword-arm, taking up meaningless violence just to make sure he had something in his belly. Every shred of his morality recoiled at the very idea of becoming anything like a mercenary. Someone would point, and it would be his job to attack first and ask questions later.

That wasn't him.

"They like to hunt people."

Caiden looked at the little thief again. She shrugged casually, like she didn't know exactly what she was doing – and wanted to pretend he wasn't seeing through it, which he was. Caiden narrowed his eye.

"The goblins. Mostly mer, 'cause of old grudges, but humans too now," she continued. "Tie them up, throw them to their big spiders. Lots of people getting real scared goblins'll take them in the night."

Caiden grunted again. Thoughtful, not dismissive or annoyed.

Maybe she was pulling his chain. Maybe not. Either way…

She pushed her bowl of stew over in front of him instead and reached up to shut the book she'd so unceremoniously dropped on the bar when she'd arrived.

"Interested?" she asked again, offering an almost impish smile to go with it this time.

This little thief was trouble. A _lot_ of trouble. He didn't have to be a werewolf to smell that much.

Caiden kept scowling and turned to the bowl of stew. It wasn't the hottest anymore, but he couldn't be pressed to care.

Maybe it was time he tried monster hunting again.


	6. Between a Rock and a Nord

**I** n which Sadja wonders the differences between a rock and a certain Nord, and Caiden discovers how terrible goblins taste.

* * *

 **Between a Rock and a Nord**

* * *

 **T** raveling with that Voros fellow felt a little like strapping a rock to a saddle and on occasion thinking the wind blowing over it made a noise.

That was to say, Sadja had a feeling even rocks had a far greater emotional range than that Nord. Especially _this_ one right here— she lifted the fist-sized thing, tilting it slightly left and then right, an adored the cheeky grin it threw her back. Granted, she'd put that there with some paint. Along with the eyes and the smudged stubble for a beard it'd needed to complete the picture.

"Sun is getting low," said the Voros-rock then, and Sadja looked past Debby's gently swaying ears to the large back up ahead. It was a very— uh— _tense_ back, she noted. All straight and square and whatnot. "We should find a place to camp."

"Don't stop on my behalf, Voros. I'm not tired yet." She shifted on the saddle. "Can go all night."

He shot her a look over his shoulder. The first one in a really long damn while, too. And Sadja felt a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to turn Debby around and get her to bolt back down the road they'd been following. Somewhere off to her right, Sten started rumbling again.

"Oh," she said. Because just like that she remembered. With her insides bunching up, she chucked the stupid, smug rock into the woods, and thought she'd like to very much have a stern word with past-Sadja about that brilliant plan of hers.

* * *

 **W** hen _did_ werewolves grow fur anyway?

She looked up from where she sat hunched over her bubbling pot. The sky had darkened plenty, had started pulling down its purple blanket, dragging the stars and slanted moons along.

Not only on full moons, no?

She looked down again. Flicked a finger at Sam when he neared the fire, little goat nose nibbling at air in preparation to sticking his whole head into the pot. This wasn't goat stew though. No. Not made with goat or for goat, and so Sadja chased him off before going back to stirring. Carefully. Didn't want to break up the chunks of hare floating around in there. A hare she'd got with that shitty-creaky-flimsy-piece-of-skeever-dropping bow she'd bought with her last coin when they'd left civilisation behind.

Oh how she missed her old one.

At that, she tilted her head just enough to look at Voros with his big, stompy feet. He hadn't sat down once since they'd made camp.

Or, well, _he'd_ made camp. She'd not had to lift a finger, so she'd dug out a brush and had taken it to the pretty white horse's coat and mane. The pretty and _large_ horse, and she'd had to climb up on its back to get to the rest of it.

" _He got a name?"_ she'd asked while Voros had started piling wood on for a fire.

A look had all been she'd got for that.

" _Right. Apples."_ She'd slid off the horse. Had given it a few more good scratches up along its neck. _"You're an Apples."_

Now, Apples stood with Debby, their horse heads stuck together like they had secrets to share, and neither seemed to care much about what'd gradually crawled deeper and deeper into their camp: Some uncomfortable question on whether or not Sadja had finally made a really-really bad call.

What if instead of stepping on her bow with those large claws of his, he'd end up stepping on her instead? She'd snap just as easily.

No. He wouldn't have said he'd come along if that'd been his plan. Would he? Nah. He wasn't the type.

 _We-eell—_ some reasonable voice in the back of her mind whined. _What do you know about him that makes you think he isn't?_

She sniffed. There'd been the look on his face when the fresh faced hunters had gone off. Relief. And she doubted it'd been because he'd thought he'd break a sweat fighting them, but he'd just not wanted to. Fight them, that was. Fight them and hurt them.

Reasonable, no?

Voros moved again, continuing his purposeful pacing, because that was really what it was. This time, he'd put some of his gear away. Had stripped down from the firm leathers to a simple linen shirt which'd seen more stitches than should be rightfully allowed.

And as he went from over _there_ to over that-other-way, Sten got up, walked a few steps, and then laid back down the moment he'd put himself between them again. Staring. Poor thing hadn't got around to relax even once since the Inn.

Yeah, this was going _real_ great.

Sighing, she lifted the wooden spoon and dinged it gently against the pot. Immediately, both hound and Nord lifted their heads, and that tension born of reasonable fear in her gut got sidelined a little by a barmy giggle wanting out real bad.

Sten wasn't getting stew. He knew that, and he was a good hound that didn't beg. He did, however, grunt himself back to his feet and flopped down by her side, just in case Voros had an idea of eating her, rather than the food she'd cooked them.

Or him, as it turned out, because that man ate enough to shame a small army, and there was really only so much stew you could make out of a hare.

"You look a little tense," she told him after he'd shovelled down his first serving and was busy spooning another into his bowl. Least he'd sat down though. That was nice. Though he hadn't picked up talking.

 _Grunt._

"You ever like—" Sadja paused, watched Sam approach the Nord's knee. "—consider just flopping on your back and doing—" Sam reared up on his little hind legs. "—fuck all?" And knocked his little horns into the offending knee.

 **Grunt.**

He shot Sam a glare.

"Yeah, Sam, maybe don't do that."

 _Ba-ah._ Stubby tail flicking, Sam trotted off to join Sten instead, and scaled the hound's shoulders to observe from up there.

The Nord kept eating.

"I'd offer to knead those shoulders, though I don't think I'd reach," she tried when bowel three turned into him just taking the damn pot.

He paused briefly then, flicked his eye at her. Grumbled.

"How you—" Sadja gestured around her own left eye. "—get that anyway? Or lose it. Either or."

 _Scowl._

"Ah. I see. Got to be friends first. Can't be friends with someone whose name you don't know."

"What?"

 _He speaks!_

"Sadja." She leaned over the fire, rousing Sten just enough to get Sam to bounce off his back, and stuck her hand out far as she could. "My name. Sadja."

He didn't shake it. Just kept eating, saying "Odd name for a Bosmer," around the spoon between bites.

 _Well, you're a werewolf. Who's odd now, huh?_

She didn't say that of course. Instead, she lowered her hand and leaned back a little, eyes turned to the sky. Which'd got darker still. Soon, the fire'd be the only proper light around, since clouds had rolled in to hide the stars and moon.

"So—" _when do you werewolves grow fur?_ She didn't get to finish her sentence, since he shoved the pot down and was on his feet again. And by how his shoulders bunched up, and how the cords of muscle in his neck twitched, she thought she had her answer.

Didn't _like_ the answer though. Not one bit, because Mara's-ever-sheltering-bosom, did her mouth dry up and her heart bump up a storm. If she had been a hare (which'd been delicious, by the way), she'd have forfeit bolting at this point and just laid down flat, hoping the big bad wolf wouldn't bother with something scrawny like her.

Shortly after that, he left. Not shortly after he'd eaten her. No. She was still sitting by the fire, eyes on his back as he'd moved off, and eyes still on that patch of underbrush he'd vanished into. Like she was expecting Death to come pouncing from it any moment now.

He didn't though, and so Sadja went to clean the pot. Put all the things away. Listened, intently, for anything around the camp that wasn't the forest's normal beasties, and eventually decided enough was enough.

This'd been her choice, after all. And she could live with that. Could have faith in it. Tonight, he wasn't going to eat her, she told herself, and padded over to Debby's saddle bags to dig out a book.

Not that book from the Inn no. That one'd been way too cumbersome to carry around. This one was less so. Was thin and well cared for, but worn out by her fingers flicking through the pages over and over and over again. She carried it to where she'd laid out her bedroll close to the flickering fire, flopped down on her back, and was immediately assaulted by Sten deciding the only way to keep her safe was to drape himself bodily over her.

"Ugh."

Somewhere off in the night, someone screamed.

Sadja winced. Flipped the book open, careful not to let the pages she'd shoved in there fall out. So okay, she'd defiled the tome back at the Inn. Ripped everything of importance out. It'd made her feel bad for a minute or two, but then she'd got over it.

"It'll work out," she told the camp. Herself, too. "You'll see. This'll go well."

 _Huff,_ said Sten.

And beyond the trees, under the pale moons leaking through the clouds, a wolf howled.

* * *

 **I** t was a long night.

Not that Caiden remembered any of it… Not this time. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. He _assumed_ it was long, because it always was, or at least it surely was to that little thief – no, something with an S. How did Bosmer names work again? It was probably… Sina. Sidra? But none of those sounded right.

Caiden rubbed his eye. A fog still hung over everything as his mind tried to clear.

Spring, maybe? Seemed Bosmer enough. No – wrong again, he knew it. Too simple.

Serwin? Selene?

 _Sadja._

He paused, knew that was right. Still a weird name.

Caiden got to his feet, stretched, and brushed some dirt off his skin. He'd left his clothes in the hollow of a tree, and luckily, they were still there when he got back to them again. Part of him had expected the thief— expected _Sadja_ to have taken them. No reason, just because it was something she'd do. That seemed to be the way she worked.

Had to be, considering she'd chosen to travel with a werewolf.

He didn't have time to dwell on that now, ask himself why. They had work to do. Once he'd pulled all his clothes on, he turned and made back toward their camp, the smell of breakfast pulling him along by his stomach.

* * *

 **O** nce they'd eaten, they focused on reaching the caves. It didn't take them long, given they didn't waste any time with him in the lead.

There wasn't much to see. Caiden guessed most of the goblins lived in the caves, since all there was outside were a few simplistic wooden watchtowers – from here, they looked barely taller than he was – and some animal-hide tents with fire pits. Various stooped goblins prowled around, hunched so low they made themselves almost a foot shorter than they already were. Which they really didn't need, since they were already so small.

Caiden threw a look at the little thief beside him. _Still bigger than her, though._

The smell wafting off the goblin warrens was enough to make him wish he hadn't taken this job, even as good as Sadja's food had been. The unique combination of rotten fish, tanning hides, and foot fungus was enough to turn anyone off, but especially a werewolf. It almost turned even _his_ stomach, which balked at nothing.

He and Sadja stayed downwind, and that let the gentle breeze bring the putrid stink of goblin right over to them. There wasn't much wind, but it barely took a breath to move the reek, as thick as it lay around the caves.

Caiden grunted.

"Bet Sten's glad he stayed with the others," Sadja remarked. By _the others_ , she meant her goat, her horse, and his horse… whom she'd apparently named Apples. _Whatever._

Then she caught his gaze and grimaced in apparent realization. Maybe she noticed the way his eternal scowl had darkened badly enough to mark his face with worn lines like carven stone… More than usual.

"Oh," she muttered. "Right."

He huffed.

"Let's move," he said, rising – and Sadja instantly reached up and grabbed his belt before he'd stood completely, tugging on him hard enough to elicit a grunt made of surprise and frustration. But it also made him stop and lower himself beside her again, bristling.

Sadja let his belt go and quickly drew her hand back, like she half expected him to bite it off. But it didn't lessen the intensity of her snapping, "What're you, a fucking ox? You just walk right into goblin caves?"

Caiden stared at her. "Usually."

Sadja stared back and she murmured a unique swear somehow relating to Mara's tits. "How's that _'usually'_ go?"

He shrugged. "Fine."

She kept staring. Then she blinked and looked like she was trying to run that scenario through her head a few times.

Finally, she rearranged the bow on her back and said, "Ah-right. But we're going in _my_ way. Can feet like that sneak?"

She pointedly gave his nearest booted foot a nudge with her own. Her own _tiny_ one.

 _Grrmm,_ he rumbled.

"That mean yes?" Sadja quirked a brow at him. "I'm still learning."

Caiden nodded toward the caves. "Go."

"Such a gent," she remarked before she turned and, staying low, moved toward the nearest cave mouth. Caiden flicked his eye up in what barely constituted an eye-roll before following her.

He'd stopped wondering at this point whether she ever shut up. She never did.

Unless, he learned, she was sneaking. Because she didn't make a single damn sound, even when she moved. Caiden wasn't sure how she did it. She moved _fast,_ too. He was busy trying to keep himself close to the ground, and she was already ahead with her back pressed flush against the mountainside, just off to one corner of the cave entrance.

Harsh, slanted morning sun struck the opposite side of this mountain. Here, in the shadow of the peak's western side, they had quite a bit of darkness to work with, especially considering the ugly trenches hard rain had left carved across the foothills – trenches Sadja fit right into like a cat walking down its favorite little gully path.

Caiden didn't fit at all.

So he went prone, crawling forward – until a goblin dropped down from the watchtower to his left. His fucking _left._

She'd moved up keeping the watchtowers on their left. On his blind side.

 _Shit._ Did this little thief ever _think?_ Better yet, did he even think before he followed her? What was wrong with him?

But he heard it, smelled it. Cautiously, he turned his head as slowly as he could, just enough to see the goblin in the corner of his eye. The watchtower stood a few feet off, still in the shadow of the mountain. The goblins' eyes would be adjusted to the low light. He'd stand out like a sore thumb.

Instantly, Caiden's stomach tightened and compacted itself – and everything in it – into a hard, leaden knot. Was he really this damn rusty?

No. He wasn't. Because if he wasn't crawling on his belly in a trench, those goblins would already be dead… Then again, that was when he would've had a squad.

Now he didn't. No time to dwell on that again.

Something whistled over his head. Whistled so sharp it made him wince, made his shoulders twitch and a growl try to escape his chest where the beast stirring there sent it up to express its frustration at the noise.

Then something exploded a short ways off, farther down the foothills, toward the forest.

The goblins sprang into action, jabbering and snarling in their crude language as they descended from their watchtowers and gathered like a horde of rats, converging on the disturbance. Caiden sat up just enough to glance around and make sure they were gone.

Then he got up into a crouch and quickly made his way over to Sadja, who was just putting her bow away.

"That was my only explosive," she whispered with a frown.

She didn't give him a chance to answer before she was on the move again, ducking low and slipping into the cavern's maw, staying close to the walls. Caiden went in after her, trying to stay closer this time.

The difference in here from out there was almost staggering. Somehow, the air even just inside the caves was so cool it made the sweat on his skin feel ice cold. Mildew assaulted his nostrils, and dampness hung in the air thick enough to cling to him.

There weren't many goblins hanging around the entrance. Apparently they put a lot of stock in their shitty sentries outside.

Following Sadja was a handful in itself. Her step was so light even Caiden almost didn't heard it – she somehow knew just where to put her foot to avoid any of the loose pebbles or tiny puddles of water dripping off the stalactites overhead. Caiden froze briefly as his boot slipped and thudded with a splash right into some shallow water.[

"Careful, Stompos," Sadja hissed back at him.

Stompos. _Stompos?_ What the fuck.

Caiden grunt-huffed at her. Aggressively.

There wasn't much light, because the goblins' sensitive eyes didn't need it. They had a sparse littering of torches, stuck in wooden rigs to keep them standing up, along the pathways. Otherwise, the illumination all came from the odd clusters of acrid-smelling blue-white fungi assembled in softly glowing clusters here and there, usually where the ceiling or the floor met the walls.

Not that he needed much light to see… not anymore. And, he guessed, Sadja's elf eyes didn't need it either.

The hall gave way to a larger cavern – a _much_ larger cavern. Maybe the main area… Or maybe not, once Caiden caught a glimpse of a hall toward the back with a massive bear skull hanging over the entrance.

"Warlord's chambers," he said quietly, nodding toward it. Sadja threw him a look.

"Think that's where the key is?"

"Key's probably with the shaman, and the shaman is with the warlord."

"They're 'with' each other in their 'chambers?'" Sadja said with a snicker.

Caiden gave her a flat stare and wondered if she ever really _focused_ on anything.

Getting through this cave could be difficult. Caiden stopped, kneeling in the shadows long enough to get a good idea of what they were dealing with.

Goblins everywhere in here, not like the halls they were sneaking through before. They wandered around the ground, around animal skin huts and meat racks… and others, archers, patrolled about on primitive but sturdy wooden structures, almost like scaffolding, built high overhead and structured around some enormous stalactites.

The archers didn't seem on high alert. They weren't watching the corners, and many of them seemed distracted with other things. These weren't sentries, they were just going about their lives here. It just so happened that most goblins always carried their weapons.

 _Stay in the corners. Move quickly. Keep eye out for patrols._

Simple. Easy.

Sadja nodded at him, and Caiden nodded back. Staying low, she took the lead again, sticking to the darker edges of the room and trying to avoid any glowing patches of mushrooms. Caiden stayed right on her heels. At this rate, they'd make it across the room in just a few minutes.

And then Sadja diverted course. Caiden froze briefly, long enough to realize what was going on.

Something glinted in the torchlight toward the center of the room. A flash of gold winked at him when the flame flickered a certain way, something on top of a barrel piled high with what looked like spoils from some goblin raid.

That one golden flash was enough to catch Sadja's attention, and she turned right for it like a magpie out of a fairytale.

Caiden's scowl hardened as badly as ever and he snatched for her, trying to get something he could use to pull her back. She threw a look back at him just long enough to evade and pick up the pace.

"What in Oblivion're you doing—!?" he snarled after her. She didn't even give him a glance that time, she just kept going like this one shiny bauble was her new objective instead.

Caiden bristled. Without his permission, that growl rumbling in his chest got considerably louder.

 _Fucking thieves…_

And she messed up.

Caiden stayed his ground and watched, knowing he'd get caught if he even tried to set foot any closer to the overly active area Sadja was trying to 'sneak' into, because she was insane. Yet, somehow, she did fine at first.

But it turned out one of those goblins _liked_ that shiny bauble.

Maybe he'd been afraid another goblin would steal it. Maybe he _was_ the goblin planning to steal it and it wasn't even his. Maybe he'd just been staring at it either proudly or longingly all morning.

No matter the reason, there was a goblin on a scaffold overhead staring right at the barrel, and he saw Sadja.

The creature let out a guttural yell that pitched into a shriek. It sounded like something pulled right out of the twisted bowels of Ashpit. And the second the goblin even sucked in a breath and started that ear-rending sound, all the other goblins flew into high alert.

Hands got busy drawing weapons. Hunched backs hunched even worse, dropping into combat stances. Eager for a fight. They all were – Caiden could smell it, even through their stench.

More shouting filled the halls. Words Caiden couldn't understand. Easy to figure out what they meant – _intruder. Kill it._

Sadja cursed and cursed again as she leapt up and pulled the bow off her back – which she also cursed, while she was at it – almost fumbling to draw an arrow. She was a little busy trying to back away from a gathering swarm of angry goblins converging in the center of the room.

The first goblin who'd seen her was still shrieking, screaming obscene-sounding noises that passed for words and pointing a long spear down at her. That earned him an arrow straight to the throat that sent him tumbling off the scaffolds and landing in a heap in front of his companions. The goblins stopped in surprise and stared at the corpse.

It was a damn good shot.

Sadja lowered her supposedly shitty bow. Caiden caught her gaze long enough for their eyes to lock.

"At least he shut the fuck up?" she offered like she wanted praise.

The shocked silence didn't last long.

The shrieking increased tenfold as the horde of little monsters poured over their fallen comrade – carelessly trampling him in the process, because Caiden knew perfectly well they couldn't really have cared less – and ran straight for Sadja.

To her credit, the little thief turned and started running. But the goblins were faster. Sadja, though, had turned to run toward _him,_ and Caiden ran to meet her halfway.

He barreled headlong into the three goblins practically snapping at Sadja's heels, sending them all flying. Shield on his arm and sword in hand, he stood his ground. Behind him, he heard Sadja still moving. Light boots against the stone – and then against wood. She was climbing those goblin scaffolds.

The goblins stank. Their stench was almost overwhelming. It made him mad – madder than it should. Madder than made sense. His heart pounded too hard in his chest, the desperate heat in his blood reminding him how much he'd been looking for another fight.

Something in him stirred. Something primal. Something he didn't want right now – so Caiden pushed it back and focused.

There were too many goblins to count, all armed, trying to surround him – couldn't let them do that.

Caiden lunged forward again, and with one low swing of his blade knocked two goblins off their feet and into their tightly-packed but uncoordinated excuse for a formation. They fell onto some of their fellows, sending at least four to the ground, all grunting and snarling at each other in a heap of reeking limbs that tried to untangle themselves to fight.

Caiden swung again – higher this time. Caught one's throat and was rewarded with a fresh spray of blood. The smell of it sent white-hot fire shooting through his veins that were already hot enough.

They leapt for him, moved in pairs or more, trying to slash at his legs and take him down like he was a giant. Their flimsy blades glanced off his boots – he felt a spear pierce his thigh when a taller goblin charged, but adrenaline let him ignore it and whirl to chop into the tall goblin's neck with one swipe of his blade.

They needed to move. They couldn't take on an entire goblin infestation – but now they had no way out.

More of them charged. Caiden knocked one out of the air with his shield. A measured kick sent another sprawling back into his fellows with enough force to break ranks and knock a few waves of them them over like dominos.

Blood ran down his legs and down his sides – try as he might, the goblins kept reaching him, getting off a few hits. Not that it mattered… none of it was silver. None of it could hurt him, not really. Still, that wasn't stopping him from feeling like a war elephant they wanted to wear down the legs of until it collapsed.

Overhead, the song of Sadja's bowstring told him she was still watching his back. Probably she was the only reason no archers had shot him by now, at least until she had too many targets.

So the goblins tried something different.

One of them shouted again, something that sounded like orders. Several of them dropped their weapons and charged at once, coming at him from all sides. Sadja's bow sounded again, knocked one off-course with an arrow, and Caiden sliced another in half.

That didn't stop the other three.

They jumped for him, one grabbing his sword arm and clinging on like a parasite, sinking its teeth into his skin near the shoulder and turning itself into a dead weight. Caiden grunted, growled, tried to throw it off, but it held fast – just as another jumped on his shield, latching there and trying to pull it off his arm.

And the last one climbed right up his back like he was a fucking tree, grabbing the straps on his armor for support and hoisting itself upward. Caiden staggered, threw one shoulder forward hard enough to get the goblin off, but it bit down on his neck to keep a grip with jaws stronger than he gave goblins credit for.

Caiden dropped the sword, just like they wanted. He reached back with his free hand and tried to pry the goblin off his back – the little monster's teeth tore at his neck, spurting blood and hurting enough that he was barely able to turn into a loud grunt what should've been a short yell of pain. Caiden threw the goblin to the ground and stomped its neck hard enough to hear it snap.

More came to replace it. They'd seen their opening now. They'd pile on him like ants and drag him down, stab him repeatedly with their rusted blades.

Everything smelled like blood. The snarling of goblins filled his ears. He heard Sadja spewing profanities overhead, plenty in languages he didn't even understand. He kept trying to throw the goblins off.

An arrow pierced his side, and that was the end of it.

The beast woke up.

All at once, the goblins became the least of his problems. His body twitched – muscles spasmed, pulled against each other – his fingers contorted and locked in pain, his joints creaked and snapped – his bones twisted like they wanted to push free of his skin—

The fire in his blood turned to a wild blaze, catching his heart in flame that spread up his spine, flooded into his head – filled his mind with nothing but rage.

Rage. Rage and _hunger._

His nails thickened, turned to claws, and he sliced into a goblin clinging to his arm, carving great bloody ruts in its flesh and making it fall off him and let out a wail of surprised terror.

Caiden answered it with a roar, one ripping from his chest that felt ready to split in two as his entire world exploded in pain. A roar that broke under the weight of the agony, and turned to a scream.

But he didn't stop. Couldn't. Goblins all over him. Knives now – daggers. Piercing his skin, letting out that flaming blood that only made his skin even hotter. Skin like molten lava.

Skin growing a dark coat of fur.

No time to fight it. No time to catch his breath. Couldn't even collapse. Had to keep fighting.

One goblin near his neck again, holding on to his armor, raising a knife to slide the blade between his ribs. Caiden ducked his head down enough to get a mouthful of the goblin's throat and grip it in those massive, sharp fangs his teeth had become. Grip – rip and tear.

The taste of blood filled his mouth. No use anymore.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, while he slipped and fell into the fury that consumed him, one thought got through: he hoped Sadja could get away. The monster inside him didn't need another victim. Certainly not that little thief that was almost nice to him.

Armor shredded off his back, fell off his steadily growing form. The goblins fell off too, or at least the smart ones did. They dropped with the ones that broke formation in the ranks still surrounding Caiden, the ones that broke and ran. Some stood their ground, dumbstruck, jaws agape with shock.

Caiden's next cry deepened still further into a roar that dragged at the bottom of his own heart, because it was the last thing he heard before the beast took over and sent him to that dark place where he could only watch, at least when it let him.

The beast snarled and snapped, tore the goblins off its body, heedless of the blades they were still sticking in him. Little weapons. Didn't matter. Nothing but annoying pinpricks that made him angrier.

A wide swipe of his massive hand let him rake his claws across at least half a dozen of goblins as they tried to flee. They flew, they fell. Sprawled. Bones snapped, cracked like brittle twigs. Blood painted the floor, the smell filled the air. Smelled better than the goblins. Smelled good and made him even hungrier.

One was still on his back like it hoped to hide there. Caiden reached back with a long arm, pulled the now squealing goblin off, and shoved it head-first down his throat to gulp it down even while it continued to squirm and wail. Tasted terrible. Too hungry to care.

The little monsters were trying to run now. Shrieking. Dropping metal weapons that clanged loudly to the floor, filled the cavern halls with deafening noise. He didn't like it. Too loud. Made him angrier.

Caiden peeled his lips back, a snarl tearing through his terrible fangs before he dropped on all fours to give chase. Smelled that little thief here. She was close.

Didn't matter. Find her again later, maybe come back for her. Right now he'd kill the goblins – he'd kill them all.


	7. The Vault

In which Sadja finds herself under sharp, golden eyes, and Death finds an equal.

* * *

 **The Vault**

* * *

" **H** oly. Shit."

He tore his armour up. All of it. The whole lot. Just like that it came apart. And him along with it.

"Holy. _Fucking._ Shit."

Somewhen between the moment she'd thought that she had gotten the Voros fellow murdered, (swarmed to death by shrieking gobs, how undignified was that?) and that second when his throat couldn't decide if it ought to howl in agony, or rip at the air with a roar that made her heart catch on a rib, Sadja decided she better be— uh— not _here_.

She climbed off the scaffolding. Swung, rather, pivoting down the side with her gloved hand gripping the wood tight. The moment the ground kissed her feet, she took off, keeping low as she could and trying real damn hard not to look back.

Not like she needed to. Look, that was. Wasn't like the noises filling up the old mines left much to the imagination.

Rip.

Tear.

Shriek.

Turned out she hadn't _actually_ wanted to know if werewolves ate goblins, and it'd all just been a stupid, idle thought.

Feet carrying her swiftly across the cavern floor, Sadja reached the large chamber with the ugly bear skull atop of its entrance. _Shaman_ , Voros had pointed out. In there. And the Shaman probably made sense to have gathered up whatever'd been stashed away in these tunnels oh-so-long-ago.

 _Though if not…? What then?_

She scoffed at herself. Flattened herself against the rock wall, her back snug against it.

 _You'll figure it out._

It's what she did, after all. Figure shit out, one step at a time. Determined now, since she'd got _that_ far, she inched to the side of the entrance.

There was a map in her head. The badly illustrated, tiny one that'd been drawn in the journal almost like an afterthought, as if the author hadn't quite been sure if he ought to put it there. But he had. Because even if these learned folk _said_ you ought to not go looking for what they'd hid, they good as always never really meant it. If they would have, they'd not have written down a word about it. Let their pride for what they'd found not get in the way of what they thought was right.

 _Ooooor they're just really, really daft,_ she thought and snuck a peek around the corner. Inside the chamber, things were well lit. Warm, flickering light filled the round hollow, and good as every inch of it was covered in spoils the goblins had amassed for their chief. Or chiefs. Fucked if she knew how goblins worked.

The warlord— _Got to be the taller one_ —and the shaman— _That one's got actual clothes, fancy._ —looked a little nerved. They stood in the middle of the room, the warlord pacing, and the shaman blabbering in gobs speak.

Neither seemed to know what to do with the situation at hand, and were preoccupied with the sounds of chaos bouncing off the cavern walls outside. It was still very loud. Still blood curdling. Distracting, too, and when a particularly loud crash (probably a scaffolding coming down) shook everything, Sadja got spooked. She got so spooked, in fact, that she got herself caught.

The warlord spotted her first. He— or her, she wasn't about to look close enough to find out —drew a dagger. Well, sword, really, depending on who you were asking and how far their shoulders went up. The blade on it was dark. Had notches in it. It looked like it'd bite hard, no matter the size, and Sadja didn't like getting bit.

So her hand dove to her quiver.

…

 _Shit._

No arrows. 'course not. She'd been peppering goblins with them, and had to have run out, which left her standing here good as with her trousers bunched up around her ankles.

 _I got this._

She charged. Charged and hollered at the top of her lungs, the shitty bow clutched in her hands and flying in an arc at the warlord as he reached her. That she'd come at him like that seemed to startle him— or maybe it was the roars outside that were getting to him —and she saw fear flash in its eyes. Just long enough anyway for the bow to smack into his head. He recoiled. Staggered. Swiped the sword/dagger at her, and Sadja wove back, the blade catching air instead of her chest, right before she had another go at him. This one had more force to it, and the poor bow felt it. She did, too. Felt the wood crack on impact and falling apart with the string barely holding it together.

 _Oh for—_

Right about then, when she drew away panting, the sad remains of the bow in her hands, a howl raked across the caverns. Raked right at her heart, if she was to be perfectly honest, and apparently the goblin warlord's, too. He dropped the weapon. Shrieked something, and bolted.

Him and the shaman, both. They forgot all about her, and straight up ran to the back of their chamber, where they ducked through a flap of cow-leather, leaving it wafting back and forth.

"Right."

Sadja let the bow drop from her fingers, scooped up the sword/dagger instead, and with that turning uneasily in her hands, looked around the room. Didn't take awfully long to figure this was a bust. While the warlord and shaman had collected plenty of trinkets, it was all just mundane loot. From embroiled satin pillows (which'd gotten mouldy and gross), to candle sticks and too heavy weapons and shields, and rugs and— _Blech._

No good.

She kicked at a goblin sized stool in passing, her mind racing. The journal had talked about a vault. Down in the bowels of mountain. Past the mines, even. She'd expected the goblins to have cracked it, but if they hadn't, then the key'd still be down there.

And if— the map in her head turned, up and down and down and up, until it sort of aligned with where she stood. Sadja blinked. Well, _if_ she'd remembered this right, then she stood in just the right place.

Sadja shrugged and followed the goblins out the back.

Her luck was holding, and by Mara's bumpy nipples, she'd make best use of it.

* * *

 **T** urned out goblins didn't taste very good. They were… oily.

Still didn't matter, though.

They kept running, yowling and yipping, screaming some kind of vile retreat. Trying to get everyone out, or else just shouting for the sake of it. Shouting because they didn't know what else to do.

Not much more they could do when a werewolf was bearing down on them.

Caiden didn't give them an inch. The harder they tried to retreat, the harder he ran after them. The faster he cut them down with his claws, with his fangs. If he got his way today, not a single goblin would leave these caves alive.

A few would, though. Why? Because he was hungry. And when the caves fell mostly silent, and the goblins mostly dead, Caiden stopped and started sniffing around the bodies.

So he started eating. One whole goblin wasn't enough. At least this way, he could pick and choose what to eat of them. Hearts. Lungs. Leave the oily flesh alone. Throw all the armor and weapons aside. Didn't need to bother digesting that.

Maybe, _maybe_ , he could eat enough to drive that hunger away… that hunger that drove him mad. He hoped. Just for a _little_ while.

Maybe even long enough to think.

* * *

 **T** hings got a little tighter in here. Darker, too, since no one'd gone and distributed torches. It was just her and the clusters of glowing mushrooms down here, with the noise from the main caverns fading. Did that mean Death had run out of goblins? Or the goblins had run out of Death?

Either or, she kept going, until man and mer made tunnels merged with much more crooked ones, which'd been around long before the first pick axe had pinged off some rock.

Didn't take a lot more walking after that and she found the first cobwebs. Or her hand did, really, brushing up against it and getting all tangled in it. The silk was sticky. Thick. And way too large for your average house spider.

"Gross," Sadja stated, her voice bouncing through the murky dark.

The chitter of small feet answered.

She paused, briefly, head cocked to the side. Listening for where that was coming from exactly, and failing to pin it down, since it might as well have been all around.

 _Go,_ she told herself then and did just that. Couldn't stop now, after all. Not after she'd come so far.

A dozen steps later, Sadja froze, any thought grinding to a halt, and the map in her head suddenly bunched up tight in an imaginary fist. Another noise. Behind her. Not in-front or around, and not the soft chatter of spider feet, but the grinding of rock under something heavy.

Very heavy.

She turned, her shoulder scraping against the cold, jagged wall, and shrunk back far as she could without making another peep. Not like she had a lot of places to go, really. Forward or back, and that was it, since even she wouldn't fit through the cracks in the tunnels.

At first, she didn't see much. Because it really _was_ dark as a cow's butthole down here. Though then the dark shifted. It contorted just enough to make her bladder pinch.

Wolf.

 _Wolf._

Tall and wide, filling out the tunnel from one side to the other.

Death? Had he got bored with the goblins and come looking for _her_? She shrunk back a little more. Must have. Must have got weary of stinky, stringy goblin meat, and wanted something a little more— more— crispy.

But then she thought she caught a glint of its eyes. Plural. Right before something touched her shoulder and she whirled around, heart in her throat, and bladder real ready to make an idiot out of her.

Luckily though, she didn't piss herself. Because a hand-sized spider wasn't anything worth pissing yourself over. And when she turned back around, the dark was just that. Dark. No wolf. Nothing.

 _Great. Just. Great. Now you're seeing furred ghosts. You'll be barmy by the time this's done._

 _Or digested. Let's not forget that. Gobble gobble, Bosmer 's gone._

Not all too much into the latter, Sadja hurried away from the figment. Just in case she hadn't imagined it, even if that was a bit of a stretch Wasn't like werewolves sprouted like weeds. They were hard enough to find as it was, unless you went out of your way to poke around for one, or were in a particularly bad patch of Skyrim under a full moon.

So what were the chances she'd found _another?_ Slim. Real slim, and that was the thought she decided to cling on to, while the map in her head led her onwards to where the cobwebs were particularly thick, and the tunnels opened into a wider cavern. Oh— and to the warlord plus shaman, standing right in the middle with spiders all around them. Big ones. _Really_ big ones, about Sten's size.

Her heart sank. The goblin shaman looked at her. Pointed. Hissed stupid goblin words at her while the warlord laughed, and the spiders chattered readily, fixing to eat her no doubt.

Or eat something, at any rate, because one moment the goblins were snickering triumphantly, and the next they were shrieking, swarmed by their own pets.

Not ever one to question her luck, Sadja bolted across, kept her nose following the horrible map in her head, and ran and ran and ran until she finally came to a stop at a dead end shrouded in time's dusty veil.

* * *

 **M** aybe that'd be enough.

Goblins wouldn't have been his first choice. Or his second. Or even his twentieth. Now that he could think, anyway. Think _some._ Just enough to look down at the cavern floor painted in swaths of blood, and decide that this was what regret tasted like. Like oily goblin.

He lifted his head, ears flat, and looked back the way he'd come. Was easy to see where he'd been. What roundabout way he'd taken through the cave. Was where he'd left the strips of goblin armor. The leftover lumps of meat. The bones.

Caiden huffed and sank back down, nosing at yet another goblin corpse. More? He stopped. Grunted. Yeah. He was full. For once. Couldn't eat another mouthful of these disgusting goblins. Could maybe eat other things, but not _this._

And not the little thief, either. He paused. Sniffed.

She'd come this way. With him, earlier. He remembered that. A little. Now that the hunger was clearing. Before he'd turned.

He stood and padded farther into the cave. Kept sniffing. She definitely came this way. Scent everywhere. He still liked that scent. Smelled nice.

The caves got narrower the way she went. Hard to fit. Had to squeeze his shoulders through. Hurt a little, actually.

Didn't hurt half as bad as the arrow in his side, though. Stuck right in his ribs. A whine slipped out his nose as he carefully tried to squeeze through a few narrower passages without the arrow snapping and hurting even worse.

And this entire place was a little moist. Made his fur stick together – what wasn't already stuck together with blood, his or goblins'. Annoying. He huffed.

Her scent kept going. And going… And…

 _Wait._ Caiden stopped. Something was wrong.

Another scent. He enjoyed the little thief's scent so much he'd almost missed it. _Almost._ But – no, it came from another direction. He smelled it now, too strong to ignore. It raised his hackles, made him tense. Made his lip twitch over his long teeth.

Didn't smell right at all. He knew this smell, but hadn't smelled it in a long while. Someone… he knew? Maybe? Caiden blinked and tried to focus. He _knew_ this – but from where?

Something else about it, too. Something familiar in a different way. Something that sent the wolf wrestling him right back into the cage in the back of his mind, made it impossible to focus on where and how and _why_ he knew this smell – a smell like ash in a forest.

The beast didn't care. It was driven again now. Not by hunger, for once, but by primal instinct. Something that ran so inescapably deep it gave him no chance to struggle, even now, when he thought he'd eaten enough to have some sense.

It was an instinct that needed to fight. To guard territory. To prove something – prove himself stronger. _Better._

This scent belonged to another werewolf.

A loner. A werewolf without a pack. A werewolf, maybe, like him. And he didn't like that.

Caiden dropped to all fours and ran, knocked his shoulders against rocky hallways and broke stalactites. Stomping. Pounding. Running as hard as he could, caution forgotten. Stealth forgotten. The arrow in his side forgotten. And the little thief – forgotten.

* * *

 **T** he vault door was real bloody old. It'd collected moss, lichen, shrooms, and spiderwebs, and Sadja had to scrape a lot of that off before she could begin to even dream of figuring it out.

That the only light to her disposal was the dim glow of mushroom clusters, wasn't exactly helping, but here she was, fingers tracing old, crumbling grooves and her jittery heart maybe a little too pleased.

Who wouldn't be though. You'd have to be horribly boring if you didn't enjoy puzzling out the locks on old things. And this one in particular, since it was the sort right out of adventure books, in which heroes got the treasures _and_ the princesses, all of which Sadja could get very well behind.

First, she turned the circular dial just right, following a pattern of depictions carved into the stone. Then, she plucked an ornate bauble out of a particular theme, slotted it into the centre of the dial— and twisted.

 _CLACK_

She stood back, just in time to avoid getting dusted by falling flakes of stone as the door started moving. It was slow. Real slow, what with how rock on rock grinding open was by no means smooth. Then, about halfway through, a loud crack snapped at the air, and the _door_ thumped down, now no more than two slabs of useless stone.

"Good enough."

Positively giddy now, Sadja stepped inside, right under a ceiling covered entirely in white and blue shrooms casting a harsh light down on a spacious, albeit cramped, room.

Room. Yeah. This wasn't just naked rock, but someone'd gone out of their way to panel the walls in wood and put up shelves. The floor was boarded, too, and what wasn't had been carved down to smooth stone.

And it was one of those long slates of perfectly even stone that she froze over, her foot hovering right above it.

She blinked. This was too perfect. Plus, the ground around it had sagged over the years, while the slate had stayed relatively straight.

A trap.

Scoffing, she stepped over it, and got to work filling her pockets. _Purposefully,_ filling her pockets, of course. She'd come looking for a very particular thing, after all, thought that didn't mean she didn't have some spare room in her pouches.

So. Key first.

 _Then fun._

It didn't take her long to find it, since even if the room was _full_ of oddities piled on the shelves, they were all rather obviously not keys. Urns, mostly, and rotten paintings, their canvases eaten up by mould. Books, too, but the air in here was thick with moisture, and their pages had long ago blended together and turned to brittle blocks of paper gunk.

Overall, it was a shitty vault.

Disappointing, really, because she couldn't find a single shiny. Even the _key_ was just a big, rusty let down, barely identifiable by a harp depicted on its flat end.

Sadja pocketed it, sighed, and started tackling a problem she'd very stubbornly ignored until now: How to get back out of here. The way she'd come, most like. Through spiders and goblins and Death. No problem. At all.

Except the moment she got a foot out the vault door, there they were. The spiders. Two— no— three— no— _four_ of the fat fuckers had decided to save her the trip and came clicking and clacking their way across the cavern floor with their long, spindly legs. And all four of them were a great deal bigger than allowed.

"Shit?"

She backed into the vault again. Looked around, and snatched up the first thing that looked even just remotely useful. A fancy iron poker cast with flowers all over it. It didn't even have a very pokey end, and it was way too bloody heavy, but it'd have to do.

Armed with that, she stepped out again. Four wasn't so bad. Not at all. She could deal with that.

Except then the shadows tucked into the tunnel she'd come out of, moved. Pounced. Landed right atop of the farthest back spider, crushing it under a large paw.

 _Werewolf,_ her mind yelped. And maybe she made a noise, too, but with no one else around, it didn't count. Right?

It growled. The werewolf. Which was definitely a werewolf. Swept almost lazily at the next spider, lifting it clear off its legs and sending it crashing into the wall hard enough to pop it open, and then snapped its jaws closed around the head of the third one.

Sadja retreated a step.

And the werewolf followed, the spider still in its jaws. On its way, it stepped right on the fourth one, just as it reared up on its legs and hissed at it.

Him.

 _Splat._

Not it. Him. He. He was wearing trousers, after all. Tattered and wide, though short, clinging to his hip with a frayed belt.

Death?

 _Wait, no—_

He was tall, there was no denying that, but not like a fucking mountain scraping at the skies sort of tall. And while his fur was black as tar, he sported a dash of white in the thick scruff down his front. He also had a lighter line running down his forehead on the left. A scar, maybe, as if someone had introduced his head to a blade and the head had won. Though what really gave it away were the eyes. For starters, there was one too many, and they were the entirely wrong colour. Sharp and eery, they flashed at her like ambers with the sun shining through. They set on her, and she took _another_ step back.

He took _two_ forward, then paused to fling the spider from his jaws, and followed up with another— and another— until she was all the way back in the vault and he was just inside.

His ears were perked forward. Into her direction. And his wolf-y shoulders rolled almost lazily as he came closer and closer, stopping only when she almost squeaked since he'd just about stepped on the pressure plate.

He paused. Looked down. Huffed, and carefully, very carefully, stepped over it, his eyes landing right on her again.

And Sadja thought that, today, of all fucking days, couldn't possible get worse.

Except then it did, and it all started with her luck diving for cover.

* * *

 **C** aiden leapt.

* * *

 **D** eath might as well have come right out of nowhere. One moment the world hunkered around her, all hush and dust in the air. The next a guttural, feral growl rolled into the vault, followed by the glint of white fangs.

* * *

 **H** e bounded forward on all fours and slammed himself into the other werewolf, sinking his teeth into the thick black scruff of the loner's neck.

Didn't do much good. He got a mouthful of fur and a noseful of ashen scent. But no blood. Just a surprised snarl and the snap of teeth.

But they went down. That was a start.

* * *

 **H** e stomped on the trap. Sadja heard the click.

And then Death buried the golden-eyed wolf under him, and as if that wasn't enough, buried them _all_ in the vault. A slab of rock crashed from the ceiling, covering the entrance. It groaned and creaked, and for a beat she thought it'd topple forward and flatten the growling— snapping— snarling— monsters.

It ended up just trapping them instead.

 _Bugger._

* * *

 **C** aiden kept his grip. Sank his claws in. Tore at the other loner's chest. At his arms. At anything he could reach, while his ears pounded like drums. His heart was beating too hard, pumped searing hot hatred through his veins.

The other one twisted. The world tilted—

* * *

 **S** adja scuttled out of the way. _Spacious_ was what she'd thought when she'd first seen the inside of the vault. Relatively large.

 _Relatively_ her arse.

The walls were too close now. The shelves in the way. And that stupid, heavy poker in her hands? Useless. But she hung on to it anyway. Held it up in front of her as if that'd _help,_ grasping it so tight, her gloves wanted to split.

* * *

— **a** nd something hit his side. Hit the arrow lodged there. Drove it in deeper, like a lance slicing at his ribs. The pain spread like forked lighting through his chest and ripped a snarl from his throat. Claws came next. They dug in, hot points of pain dotting his flank, and before he knew it, the other one had thrown him off.

Growling, bristling, Caiden scrambled back to his feet.

Every step came with a pulse of sharp pain as the arrow scraped at him from the inside. No time for that right now.

He lunged.

* * *

 **D** eath _really_ didn't like the other werewolf.

She'd thought that maybe, just maybe, once they'd separated, maybe they'd spent some time growling at each other, hackles raised and fangs bared. And she'd also thought she could slip around them. Slip _somewhere,_ anyway, get _something_ between her and them, but then Death threw himself into the golden-eyed one, and they came rushing at her like a rockslide roaring down at her.

Sadja tried to get out of the way.

Tried. Failed, and saw herself crushed against the wall like an unfortunate fly.

Though then a large, clawed hand knocked into her shoulder, swatted her from their path and right into a shelf, which she bounced off of with all its contents raining down around her.

Stunned— because _ouch,_ wood was hard, even if her head was harder —she crumpled amongst torn paintings and smashed vases, and wondered where her poker had gone.

And how awfully nice it'd been of the golden-eyed werewolf to shove her.

Even if it'd been pointless.

* * *

 **N** oise.

Metal clattered to stone floor. Wood broke. Rock gave a muffled crack under his feet.

With a heavy swipe of his arm, Caiden sent the loner dodging to the side and his shoulder ramming into another shelf. Clattering again. Breaking. Scattering debris everywhere at their feet. Caiden briefly laid his ears flat and let loose a roar of utmost frustration that only served to further deafen everyone in the chamber.

He'd wanted to drive this werewolf off. Or to make him submit to him. He hadn't care which.

Now his rage ran hotter. He almost just wanted to kill him.

Teeth flashed near his own. Jaws snapped. Caiden snapped his own right back. Knew what that meant. _Back off or I'll bite,_ this other lone wolf was saying. Almost like he didn't want to fight. Unlike Caiden.

Still a threat. He still _would_ fight, he wouldn't back down. That was unacceptable.

Lunging yet again, Caiden almost pinned the loner against a line of shelves. Would have, if the other werewolf hadn't reached out with a long arm and braced it against the wood and metal to keep that from happening. His arm shook from the effort, but it held out.

Not for long.

* * *

 **T** hey almost trampled her. Almost, because the golden-eyed werewolf's stopped Death's charge with barely a finger's width left to spare. He braced against the weight Death threat at him, and gave Sadja just enough time to slide out from under a shaking wall of tar coloured fur. The moment she'd cleared, she heard them crush those shelves, too.

And the moment she'd pulled herself onto wobbly feet, she heard the stone under her give a muted, deep rooted _POP._

 _No— no— no—_

* * *

 **H** e leaned back just enough to slam his weight into the other werewolf again, which earned a twisted pop from the arm he'd braced himself with. A sharp yelp echoed through the chamber – but it quickly turned to a snarl ripping up the air. Trying to be heard over Caiden's endless growls like an erupting volcano.

And Caiden kept bearing down, pinning the other werewolf. Straddled him, tried to keep his legs out of the way. Grabbed his wrists. And tried to bite down on his throat again.

His teeth caught the other werewolf's jaws – the loner pulled his head away, leaving bloody ruts behind on his muzzle, and tried to return the favor. Didn't work. Caiden reared his head back and lunged, snapping again. Jaw sparring. Teeth snapping and clashing against each other almost like a duel with blades.

The other werewolf twisted an arm free before Caiden could react. Claws came around, raked his face, leaving trails of hot blood. Hit his head hard enough to snap his head sideways on his neck.

Caiden reared back with a roar, swiping blindly, blinking blood from his eye. Burned. Hurt. Made him angry. Set his veins on fire.

He couldn't see. All he saw was red blood and red rage.

With all his might, Caiden threw himself forward, tried to tackle the loner. But the loner was gone, Caiden felt him scramble out from under him, his claws scraping the stone floor as he went to one side. Caiden didn't let him.

Whirling, he swiped a wide swing of his arm again, claws slashing in an arc – again the loner dodged.

Dodged – and got his claws in again, raked them over Caiden's stomach and left bloody ruts in their wake. Made him flinch, pulled a short, sharp whine up his throat. The fact that it'd hurt so badly only made his next growl all the louder.

The loner was fast. Caiden _had_ to beat him. Couldn't let him win.

 _Crack._ The ground shifted beneath Caiden's feet. It almost threw him off balance. He only used it as an excuse to leap forward, toward the loner again.

The loner made an odd noise then. A kind of grunt-growl-yelp, like a sound of warning. That was the last sound he made before Caiden landed on top of him.

And then everything collapsed. Stone gave way underneath them. The loner howled, a tangle of fur and muscle that twisted in midair as they fell. Hit rocks on the way down, jagged edges that scraped Caiden's flanks and shoulders, tried to catch his legs—

* * *

 **T** hey took her right along with them.

Her, and the whole damn vault. It all went straight down, followed the rocks, the floorboards, and the roaring, twisting werewolves falling and falling and falling.

Real fucking shame, that. Real _— Ow—_ shame that _— Ow!—_ this all had to end with her tumbling from one rocky outcrop to the _— OW!—_ other, hands grasping and clawing at anything she could get a hold of to stop her _— Ow-Ow-_ _ **OW**_ _—_ from turning into a vaguely Bosmer shaped smear in some dank cave. A cave that kept going and going and going, until she finally hit the icy cold bottom with a sharp, painful (and very wet), smack.


	8. Arrow

**Taffer Notes:** Since it has been a while since we updated this one, here is a short summary on what happened:

 **Caiden Voros** , betrayed by the people he considered kin and friends, has been left cursed and alone, hunting for vengeance while a wolf howls in his heart. **Sadja** , a Bosmer thief and friend of all things wild and the thrill of death chasing her, finds a werewolf that could swallow her in one go, yet leaves her alive and curious.

And a chance meeting (or something like it) brings them back together, as Sadja accepts a contract to obtain a set of artefacts, one of which is locked in a vault deep within a goblin infested mine. What better way to make it through there alive, than have a tall, sturdy Nord by her side? Though things don't go as planned, which is to say they go exactly as our two heroes should have expected: Wrong.

Caught by the goblins, Caiden loses his grip on the wolf and turns. While Sadja, not keen on being added to the snack pile, scampers off to find the vault.

She finds it.

And then something else finds her: A second wolf with a set of golden eyes.

Doesn't take long and both Caiden and the newcomer are locked in a vicious fight, which ends with the vault they're fighting in collapsing, sending them, and our little thief, tumbling into the dark.

* * *

 **Arrow**

In which Sadja figures that man and beast aren't that far apart.

* * *

 **S** adja was just the slightest bit cross with the world.

If you squinted, it might have been entirely possible that she'd got even a little mad at it all, in particular, the bit where she came up from under all that frigid water, her lungs burning hotly and blips of light dancing in her vision.

Yeah. Good chance she wasn't really into this— this whole almost drowning thing. This tumbling tit over arse through the pitch black, carried along by water going entirely too fast, with barely a snatch of air here and there to keep her from flaking out. Oh and the rocks. Ow. The rocks. Her hips smarted and her ribs did too, and everything was entirely too wet and cold and _Oh Gods, air!_

Down here, it was good as pitch black. Black and cold, and full of sharp edges that scraped at her knees and bit at her fingers. Then she saw it. _Light._ It pierced the murky wet, a fat lance of beautiful, _beautiful_ light pouring in from somewhere overhead.

She swam for it. Kicked her way up and up and up, a scream for air stuck in her throat. And when she finally came up, arms flapping about like she was some madwoman, all she could think of was how the sky above was probably the prettiest blue she'd ever seen, and that air tasted best. Just _best._ Better than anything else she'd ever got around to tasting. Between the wheezing and the spluttering, trying everything and anything to get air into her lungs, Sadja spat out curses at the name of whatever deity crossed her mind first. By the time she'd made two rounds up and down the Eight, her knees finally hit something solid, turning the curses to lame attempts at thanking Mara for being such a lovely cunt overall, and she really hadn't meant all the mean things she'd just said. Which got her far enough for her hands to find purchase in the loose pebbles and dirt that made up a rocky shore.

So, that'd happened.

Sadja dragged herself forward and flopped onto her back. Goblins. Spiders. _Werewolves_. Her right in the middle of two of them, trying not to get crushed. Least until the floor'd had just about enough of all the weight being thrown around, and had promptly given out.

Yeah, that'd happened, and it'd ended with her almost drowning in some stupid underground river.

 _Let's not do that again._

She coughed. Which hurt. And then, her heart drumming up a storm against her ears, finally dragged herself ashore to flop onto her back. Her eyes stung, so she wiped at them, and when that only made them sting more, she just blinked them silly for a while and took in where she'd come up. It was a pool of sorts. A very wide one pressed right to the base of the mountain with its goblin and spider infested caves. Thick, dark woods ringed it from all sides, and the shoreline had patches of reeds creeping out into the water. There were even some flowers floating on the gently rippling surface. Pink ones, with fat, round leaves. They bobbed up and down lazily, stirring in a breeze or some shit like it.

Sadja would have laid there longer, probably. Laid there and gawked and waited for her lungs to stop being all grumpy. Though then the smooth surface of the water churned all of a very sudden, and from it rose a mountain made of pitch black fur, breaking right through a batch of those flowers.

Death.

And Death looked pissed.

That, and thoroughly drenched, with a single pink flower stuck to his flank.

 _Water lilies._

Sadja snorted. That's what they were called.

* * *

 **W** ater burned and stung at his wounds as Caiden came up for air, pulling a deep breath into his lungs before he'd barely broke the surface. He scented. Tried to find that other werewolf.

Had to find him. Finish this.

Nothing. No smell of ash the loner carried with him. Was it the wind? It was all wrong, carried nothing on it but mud and bark and green, and the water did the rest. Drenched all the scents and left him blind.

Caiden turned, a growl stuck in his chest and growing louder every second. He wanted— _needed —_ to finish his fight. But with the loner gone, it meant he'd lost.

Hot anger rose in his blood again, made his shoulders twitch and his clawed fingers tremble with the desire to tear into something. _Anything._ Nostrils flaring, Caiden moved through the deep, waded until the water fell from his shoulders and arms— and his nose picked up _something._ Someone. Familiar. Spice, pine, metal – he liked that scent and he wasn't sure why.

That little thief. Still here. Close by. She'd been in the cave, too. Strangely, something inside him actually cared, was glad she was still alive, to find her standing at the shore and not dead in a heap.

Standing there. Staring. Not running. Why did she never run? What was _wrong_ with her?

* * *

 **W** ith powerful twists of his shoulders, Death shook water from his fur, the drops falling into the quiet lake-pool-thing like a spurt of rain. Not all of it came away clear. The lily though, that clung on tight.

Red bloomed on the water where his blood fell, some of it coming far enough to dot the small stones lining the shore. He'd not come out of the water yet, not entirely, but stopped in the shallows, fixing her in a one-eyed stare. And only then Death seemed to remember that he'd just wrestled another werewolf. Or that he had an arrow stuck in his side, and that all that shaking was hurting like a real mean bitch. He grunted. Growled. Peeled his lips back up over long, white fangs, and let the world know he was absolutely displeased.

In her stomach, a bunch of very stupid butterflies butted heads with unbidden excitement.

 _Down, you morons,_ Sadja thought at them and took her first step towards Death.

Sure, anyone with a lick of sense would have left. She knew that. Wasn't like she was _stupid._ Sadja's lips itched at the corners. Just a little crazy and no one ever tell you different.

She took another step— and another— and another— until her boots were back in the water, and Death's eye landed squarely on her once more. A low warning rumbled up his throat.

 _Psht._

He was a mess. A _bloody_ mess, all torn up from snout to back, with ugly gashes on his face and worse ones— deeper ones —on his thick arms and on his neck and side. There were holes, too. From goblin spears. Overall, Sadja was just a smidgen amazed that he was still standing. Standing and growling, the sound hacking up his throat a little louder now that she'd drawn relatively close.

So Sadja stopped, water sloshing around her ankles and her calves, and carefully, slowly, reached up to the collar of her sodden through shirt.

 _Growl?_

Her fingers slipped under the cloth— her cold and clammy fingers and that was just gross —and fished for the string of leather hanging off her neck. With a tug, she pulled out the whistle attached to it and dangled it in front of her chest for Death to see.

He shifted. Stared some more. His ears flicked forward. Then flicked back and to the side and every-fucking-where. Probably listening for that other wolf, she thought.

That _friendlier_ wolf. The one with the trousers on. And, not to forget, the one that'd stopped him from crushing her.

"It eludes me," she said, "why I'd even bother, Voros. You were ready to butter the wall with me, remember?"

One ear twitched forward.

"But I shudder to think what it'd be like taking your wolf coat off—" She gestured to his side, where the arrow shaft gave a slight quiver when his flank twitched. "—while having _that_ in. So, how about this. I forget what just happened and how this whole thing is entirely your fault, and you don't take my head off while I remove that arrow. Mh?"

Smiling wryly, and taking the silence for a yes, Sadja lifted the whistle to her lips.

 _You're not going to like this._

The whistle was quiet. Really really quiet— the sort of quiet that only the keenest ears had any chance of hearing. Though then it'd be shrill and it'd be deafening, especially if you stood only a few paces away, loitering in water that ran red with your blood seeping down your fur.

Death's ears laid down flat. The renewed growl rumbling off him even made the idiot butterflies in her stomach reconsider. They stopped tumbling excitedly, and instead fell heavy into the pit of her stomach.

He also stood up straighter, and Sadja suddenly remembered how absolutely _absurdly_ tall he was.

Though— wait— he wasn't wearing trousers, so—

The butterflies got eaten by a barmy giggle rolling around in there with them, and Sadja bit down on the whistle with a quiet snort.

She cocked her head to the side. Looked down.

And just like that, Death lowered himself again, his large hands curling into loose fists and the knuckles of those furred fingers touching the water's surface.

He huffed.

"Spoilsport."

* * *

 **A** nother huff, this one with a side of growl, and Caiden threw the little thief another look. The same curious eyes kept watching him, and the closer she came, the stronger her scent grew. He still liked it, for some reason. It made him stare. Made him hesitate to take a swipe at her and send her off. Instead, he let her be crazy enough to get so close he could readily eat her.

Which he could do again. Eat. Goblins were as good as gone. And she would've been a good snack. Bite-size, or close enough.

But the conundrum that was the little thief – the snack who'd helped him once before already – spoke then and made his nearest ear again twitch in her direction.

* * *

 **A** nother step and she wasn't dead yet. Was, in fact, very alive, her heart hammering happily against her ribcage and her stomach twisting into excited knots.

"You'll thank me," she said, "when it's out. Promise. I'm good at this sort of thing, just got to ask Sten."

Talking, she'd long found out, helped when you tried to calm a beastie ready to snap its jaws closed around your neck. Or maybe it wasn't the words, but _how_ you said them— and maybe Death wasn't as much beastie as he was man— either or, she managed to make it that last step, too. The one that got her all the way to his side.

He gave off heat. And he smelled of blood and earth and very, very wet fur.

"He's taken two arrows so far. But he's a burly hound, isn't he?"

And then she touched him. Death's flank twitched when she set her fingers down right next to where the shaft jutted from a seeping wound. He was almost scalding hot to the touch, the fur slick with blood and water.

"It's shoddy," she continued, "the arrow. Goblins make shoddy arrows. Probably not barbed. _Probably._ " Her eyes flicked to the side, to where he'd turned his head her way, a storm brewing dangerously in his eye. And to where that lonel lily stuck to his fur, all ridiculous pink on matted black.

First, she pinched the lily off of him, holding it up like a precious prize of sorts before flicking it away, and then she pressed her fingers down around the wound. She pushed as hard as she dared, enough to evoke a pained grunt and make blood well freely, but not enough to see the arrowhead.

 _Crud._

"Right. So, you know this'll hurt, mh?"

 _Grunt._

"Fantastic. See, what I'll do now, is I'll stab you just a little."

Rumble, rumble he went, and Sadja scoffed.

"Got to. I yank on this as is, all you'll get is a toothpick, no more. The head'll stay in, and you don't want me to have to go digging for it."

Her hand fell away and she lifted her left leg just enough to fish for the small knife tucked into the wrappings of her boot. The blade was no longer than a finger and it was real thin, perfect for splitting rope, cutting apples, and slicing canvas to roll a painting from a frame.

"But you know that already, don't you—" Knife in hand, she glanced forward again. His ears twitched. His lips did too, showing teeth. And he was staring at the knife as if that puny little thing posed some sort of threat. Droll. "—you look the type to know."

"Hold still now." With that, she set one hand around the wound again, pressing down, and brought the knife up to slide it in along the shaft.

In an instant, a growl so loud she thought a thunderstorm had snuck up on her, broke from his chest. It got worse when the sharp blade cut down, widening the wound just enough for her to slip a finger in and find the arrowhead.

Which was real messy and real unpleasant for both parties involved. The one with the thing stuck in him, and the one slowly wiggling said thing from his flesh.

"Got to be _real_ grateful it didn't get caught on a rib," she told him— and a beat later, with one last awkward wiggle and a harder yank on the shaft, the arrow came free.

Too bad she hadn't expected it to just yet. And too bad the rocks and mud in the lake were slippery as fuck.

Sadja, with every illusion of grace abandoned, landed back in the icy water like a limp and flailing fish.

Just in time, too.

* * *

 **H** e snapped.

Couldn't help it. Happened before he knew it had. A growl cut up his throat and he lunged with open jaws, biting down hard – on air.

Because the little thief was already gone, landing hard on her rear in the shallows.

All he saw was red. Red and pain and _hungry_ again, thoughts coming harder and harder, buried under that red haze. Wanted to kill something. Then eat it. Maybe just eat.

But there was only the little thief down there, giggling at him.

Giggling. At _him._ At Death.

Caiden bristled, but he locked his one eye onto her and stared.

At least until something moved. His ears twitched, swiveled toward the lake shore. Crunching hooves. Padding paws. The horses and that annoying little hound with that even more annoying, _tinier_ goat.

Seeing that he'd stopped trying to maul and devour every inch of the air around him, the little thief finally dared to get up. Sodden, wet to the bone with all her clothes sticking to her, she trudged toward the animals, flinging her arms as if that helped, and shouting a hello to that dog.

Caiden huffed.

But he trailed along after her. Didn't know why. He just did. Waded out of the water, bringing a quarter of the lake with him, hanging heavy in his fur. The little thief turned to look, just in time for him to shake himself off again, coating everything with water and blood.

Some hit her. So she made a face and went to the horses. Caiden didn't. They'd run. Even this far away, they stared at him, pawing at the ground, backing up several steps, spooked and ready to bolt.

He huffed again, and with a low growl, padded beyond them and into the nearby woods.

It didn't take long before he let exhaustion take him, and Caiden collapsed, thinking he might not have gone far enough. Body shaking – each stuttering, gasping breath he took leaving him as a groan - he fell to his hands and knees, pain overtaking his every inch. Not just from the change this time.

Wounds from the goblins that'd almost healed over ripped open again as his muscles shifted. Fresh blood oozed from retorn gashes, no longer matting wolf fur, but trickling down his skin. The arrow wound caught, protested, dragged something up his throat that almost came out as a yell. But it didn't. Neither did the pained grunts at the slashes tearing across his abdomen, or the ruts the other werewolf's claws had carved over his face. As his head became human again, the gash over his muzzle pulled squarely into the bridge of his nose, while another across his brow threatened to run blood into his only eye.

Caiden pulled in a long breath and, in a mutter that barely left him as anything more than a rumble, spoke his first few words since he'd lost himself to the beast.

"Son of a bitch."

Gingerly, he touched a hand to the bloody claw marks on his face and took a moment to think. Not about the caves or the goblins. Not even what he'd done _to_ those goblins. No, all his thoughts caught on was that other werewolf. What had he been doing there? Why would a werewolf of all things be down in those old— unless...

Unless his hunt had turned around on him. A werewolf had no reason to be there other than tracking someone or something. Goblins certainly weren't worth hunting for food. He knew that much now, and he wished he didn't, since the uniquely greasy taste of their sinewy raw flesh still festered in his mouth.

Growling, he got to his feet. He wiped some blood away from his eye and pressed a hand on his stomach.

Once he stood, it hit him – just how much everything hurt. How much a lot of it still bled. Even just putting one foot forward made him stagger and bite back a sharp grunt at all the pain that tried to take his breath away.

He gave himself a moment, put one arm out against the nearest tree and leaned against it hard. These wounds probably should've killed him. Or, at least, they probably should eventually, but they wouldn't. He'd heal.

Even so, he wouldn't heal fast enough. And the process wouldn't be easy.

Not what he needed right now. Not with the now very real possibility of Skarvald and his pack hot on his trail.

For a moment, he stood there, flexing his fingers and gathering his bearings. With a sniff, he tasted the rich forest air – tangy smells of pine, their rotting brown needles scattered over the forest floor. And, not too far off, Sadja's scent and the smell of horse and dog. Plus that goat.

Those were the scents he returned to.

There she was, sitting by the forest lake's shore, scratching an ear of that burly hound of hers that the beast in him thought of as annoying. As small and needing to be put in its place. Inexplicably, he felt a sharp pang of anger raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

He needed a drink.

Caiden swallowed hard, throat jerking, to choke down that absurd frustration. As quietly as he could, he approached Apples from the side, keeping the horse between him and Sadja. Seemed like a good idea, given he was naked as hell.

He dug around in one of his saddlebags until he found something to wear: some pants, a simple pair of trousers, and another eyepatch. It'd do until he got himself cleaned up. Not that he was sure right now that he planned on doing that anytime soon.

While he was at it, he pulled his drinking horn off the saddle, too, so he could open it and drink from it like a man dying of thirst. Only he probably couldn't die from that, for all he knew, and this sure as hell wasn't water.

He good as emptied it anyway. Stopped only when he needed air, wiping at his mouth with a shaking hand. When he lifted it again to drink up the rest, his eye caught on a twitch of white, right before a single, loud _Baaa!_ jerked his attention down to the ground.

The goat. It stood there, its stubby tail flicking left and right, and it gawked at him.

Much like the figure next to it did. The little thief. Sadja. Staring. For gods knew how long already. Not saying a word.

Caiden didn't speak, either. He hung the drinking horn on his saddle again and stood there, waiting. Still she was quiet, watching him.

With a huff, he turned, about to lower himself to the ground and lean against a tree when she finally broke the stillness.

"Say, Voros," she said, eyes still on him like she was sizing him up, "you do that often? Tear up your armor? Seems mighty wasteful, that." And then she walked right past him, the hound padding after her so close his shoulder rubbed against her leg. Few steps away, she lifted an arm and gave a vague twitch of her hand indicating the thick green of the forest's edge.

The goat followed her, its small legs kicking off with a few enthusiastic bounds, and Caiden was left by his horse, everything in him insisting he'd sit his ass down. Eat something. Maybe even let his eye fall shut, try to rest – sleep probably wouldn't happen, because it almost never did. But at least he could rest, because he sure as hell didn't feel like doing anything else.

Sadja expected him to, though, that was apparent. Because she threw him a look. That excuse for a wave had meant to tell him to follow.

Why the fuck should he?

Despite all the stinging and aching, the exhaustion settling over him like a fog, and hunger starting to gnaw rabidly at his stomach as his body told him it couldn't heal itself from nothing, Caiden turned.

And without a word, he followed the little thief. Because whyever not.


	9. Tomakos

**Taffer Notes:** Hello everyone! In this chapter, Mav introduces our third POV character; the gentleman making sure Sadja didn't get crushed to a wall.

* * *

 _ **I**_ _n which Tomakos Drake... ouch. Frick. OW._

* * *

 _ **W**_ _hat the fuck just happened?_

That was his first thought, even as he hauled himself up from the icy water and into a dark cavern. His claws slipped along slimy rock and he almost fell right back in, the current of the underground river dragging at his legs. Wasn't helping that his (right? left) arm was _fucked._ Seriously. If it wasn't for that, getting out of the water would have been a lot more straightforward, and, okay, for a second there he was scratching at the ground like a cat wanting to get out of a bathtub. So what. Shut up.

Not like there was anyone around to see it. Or to get the shit scared out of them by a pitch black werewolf popping out into the… ah… He sniffed, blinked his eyes against the dark and the water. Not like the dark mattered, he could see just fine, thank you very much. So— yeah. A cave. Smelled of slime and dried algae. Lichen. Some rot. Blood.

That was his, mostly. The blood.

 _Ow._

Tom violently shook himself off. _Ow._ _ **Ow.**_ His arm really didn't like that, by the way. Tentatively, he lifted a hand and touched his blood-streaked muzzle where that asshole werewolf's claws had gashed him real good. Stupid bastard had tried to mess up his face. Maybe he'd been jealous. Probably. Especially considering someone had definitely messed up _his_ face.

He could still see that one blazing blue eye glaring at him with some of the most singleminded determination he'd ever seen. Determination to kill him. Preferably painfully.

Tom shuddered, and he didn't shudder at much.

Because that other werewolf had been the size of a fucking _mountain_. Everyone knew Tom was the biggest, baddest (yes, he went there) werewolf around. This was crazy.

Sniffing around, he headed in the direction of the nearest draft, the stone floor cool and rough against the pads of his enormous paw feet. The cave was big enough to allow him to stand, and the breeze a cool touch to his wet fur that made it easy to follow.

And alright, he was stinging all over where he'd gotten scratched up, but that'd heal. Quickly. His arm though? Yeah, that'd heal too, sure, but fucking hell it hurt, all twisted up and popping weird whenever he moved.

Turning with it was going to be a real bitch.

Turning… He wondered if that other werewolf even turned at all. Had he been feral?

What about that bosmer, though? It seemed like she was after the same thing as him. Maybe?

Which would mean he'd heard right. Because he'd _heard_ somebody was looking for this particular little collection of – _very_ dangerous, by the way – artifacts, and maybe it'd just turned out to be her.

She was _cute_ , too. He could just eat her up.

No, not like that. Well – alright, maybe like that. Maybe _all_ the things you're thinking…

And he might end up doing that before this was over with, too, if she was doing what he thought she might be doing.

Okay, focus. So she had a reason to be there. But why had the world's biggest, craziest werewolf (that was saying a lot, coming from him, with the way he used to be) come busting up in there like he owned the place and Tom was trespassing?

Now there was the part that didn't make any sense. That was just about the _last_ thing he'd expected going into some smelly old goblin warrens…

 _Ugh_. Now his trousers were all wet and squidgy. Completely that other werewolf's fault. Tom stuck his tongue out for half a second in disgust.

The draft of fresh, cool mountain air – carrying with it a hint of the nearby forest, with the tang of pine and the almost sweet touch of detritus – led him to an open crack in the wall.

There, he paused, sniffing at it and tilting his head, peering through. Sunlight peered back at him, not quite able to reach all the way into the darkness of the cave. There was no way he'd fit through there like this – hell, it'd be a struggle enough in human form.

So, going back to her being after the same thing, it seemed pretty likely by now. She'd been trying to get into the vault specifically, she'd seemed to know just where to go, and she'd seemed to know just what to look for once she got in there.

Having more than one hunter on the trail always did make it more exciting, though, so it wasn't like he minded. Especially when the hunter was a little snack of a bosmer. And, really, if Tom could just meet up with her someplace, he'd be willing to bet he could find a very nice way they could end up working together.

Since he was, after all, just that charming.

Anyway, he didn't really see any other ways out around here, though, so he'd just have to squeeze through. He was, after all, exceptionally good at fitting into tight spaces. _Ha._

That, and all his frustration was seriously starting to build, with how none of what had happened in the vault made sense and how he ached all over. The last thing he could afford right now, with nothing around, was to fly off the handle into one of his rages. There wasn't anything around to kill and take it out on, anyway.

He took a deep breath that came back out half a growl.

This was gonna hurt…

Tom really hated screaming. It sucked. Especially when you were in a cave and got to hear the walls echo your voice right back into your ears until all of it almost deafened you.

Sucking in another hard breath, he clawed around inside himself for the will to turn human again. It'd taken him a _long_ time to get to this point, and an even longer trail of dead bodies. Theoretical bodies, because he'd eaten basically all of them.

But now really wasn't the time to think about the swath of fire and blood that was his past. Or his future, for that matter. It was all just a little depressing, and he was never one to be depressed.

The biggest problem was his arm. It always hurt, and he always screamed, but that twisted-up arm twisting harder and pulling in on itself – muscles and sinew creaking, cartilage snapping and popping like old wood trying to weather a storm – pulled a cry out of him so loud and wretched it made his ears ring when the cavern walls sent it back to him.

"Ff _fuck_ me," he groaned once he had his voice back, gently touching the now swollen arm with his other hand. _Ow. Ow ow…_

Stupid fricking werewolf. The _other_ werewolf, not him.

Tom took a deep breath, feeling amazing cold air in his lungs that sent energy through him again. Recovering from shifting back and forth had gotten so much easier, too. That, and he'd long ago given up on things that made shifting into either direction unnecessarily complicated. Like shirts, for the most part. Long hair, too (not like he ever had any, but now it was just a thick, spiky mohawk that needed absolutely no attention once he'd shed all his fur).

Trousers though?

Damn, it'd taken him forever to figure out how to make them stay on, and as it turned out this pair was fucked, soaked and torn and barely hanging onto his waist. That was fine, though, since Tom had some proper clothes stowed along with his armor, not too far off in the woods. Somewhere. He shouldn't have too much trouble finding it again. Unless he'd come out on the _other_ end of the mountain, in which case, ugh. That'd be a hike.

Squeezing his way into the opening that led outside, he had to wonder again, now that he could think a little clearer: why _had_ that werewolf been there?

Ow. The passage here was tighter than he thought, and he _really_ didn't like all these rocks poking his arm that still throbbed angrily at him.

Had the other werewolf been with that elf? Because it sure didn't seem like it. He'd been ready to crush her without so much as a thought, like she wasn't even there – like (going right back to his original suspicion) he was feral, which maybe he was. Last time Tom had been that angry he'd almost slipped back into it, so he wouldn't be surprised.

But what the hell was a feral werewolf doing that deep in a goblin shithole? Werewolves could do so much better than weak, smelly little goblins. There was so much better meat out there.

No, he had to have an actual _reason._

Maybe _he_ had been chasing after the elf? But why would he care about catching her so much to follow her that deep into the caves?

And…

 _Ah, frick._

Where had those two ended up? If that werewolf had been after the elf, then that elf was probably in his stomach by now. _Oops._

That thought made him suddenly feel very much like shit, right here halfway through pushing and fitting himself through this dumbass little passage he'd had the bright idea to go through to get out of the cave.

Tom paused for a second standing in a very awkward pose, a rock very rudely trying to jab into his belly, and frowned.

Curiosity and guilt mixed together and came to one conclusion: he should follow them. Find out what the hell he'd just run into and why he had to have this hurt arm and a stinging chest and so much _ouch_ on his drop-dead handsome face, across his nose and over his mouth.

 _Fucking finally._

Tom shoved his way through the mouth of the cave entrance, or at least the narrow excuse for one that'd been a real workout on how tall and muscular he was, not to mention his broad shoulders. Which were very impressive, of course. Most everything – no, definitely _everything_ , about him was.

Like his nose.

He could track them, keep his distance, and help that elf girl if he had to. She seemed to be in seriously over her head, and Tom caught himself feeling almost sorry for her. It seemed like _she_ hadn't expected to get stuck in a tiny space with two werewolves trying to rip each others' throats out, either.

Unless of course she really _was_ gone and eaten, but at least then he'd know. Maybe he'd even get back at that big crazy asshole werewolf that'd tried to act like he was so tough.

 _Pff_. Tom wasn't impressed.

Ow, _gods_ , his arm hurt.

Yeah – find them. That'd be easy. He already knew their scents, having followed the elf's for a little while in the cave. As for the other werewolf…

Tom paused and sniffed his hurting arm, which still carried a whole lot of his would-be enemy's smell: a very rainy scent, like a rainy day, with maybe a little earthy touch and of course a whole lot of blood. But then, _he_ smelled like blood and earth right now and that other werewolf also had. It was hard not to when you were practically fucking _covered_ in it. He focused on the rain smell, since that seemed to matter most.

So now he had that other werewolf's scent, too.

Speaking of finding things, he made his way back into some familiar territory of the woods and reached the hiding spot where he'd left all his armor, clothes, and weapons before he'd turned and gone into the goblin caves.

Alright. He could do this. He'd just put on his stuff and go find them. He had his gear, he had their scents…

He had everything he needed.


	10. Right

**I** n which life doesn't quite beget life just yet, and right is better than left.

* * *

 **V** oros looked all manners of messed up. Worse than he had already before. With his fur gone, every bruise bloomed a little darker and angrier. And he plenty of those. Bruises. From where he'd got knocked around by the other wolf, for one, and where he'd tumbled freely through the dark underwater just like her. Except she'd dodged better. Obviously.

Sadja stopped at a quiet spot bunch of paces into the thick forest, surrounded by thick-barked trees, verdant shrubs, and soft moss bedding the ground. Was a good a spot as any, and she indicated for him to sit, pointing a finger at a deep seat formed by the roots of a tree so old, that tales it had to tell were likely endless.

Sam was already there, balancing on one of the root's crests. His stubby tail flicked about madly, happy and carefree like any good little goat that cared about as much about the worries of the world as the world cared for it. Oftentimes, Sadja liked to think people ought to be more like Sam, live their life like he lived his. Other times she wanted to roast him on a spit.

She clicked her tongue, and Sam bounded off the root with a tiny, challenging bleat. Voros, in the meantime, looked at her, prompting a low growl from Sten.

And then there was Sten. A horrible role model on how to go about one's day, grouchy and worrying his coat grey.

"He's allowed to _look,_ " she told the hound. "Not eat, no. But look. Go guard Debby, you overgrown beagle."

At that, Sten huffed just once, and then plodded off, his tail stiff and high and his hackles still raised.

Voros, arms now folded, kept staring at her, his brow lifted with an unspoken question or observation or gods knew what.

"Mh." Sadja cocked her head at him. "They listen to me. Unlike Nords or wolves. Those just stand there, bleeding and whatnot. Go on. Sit. Before you keel over."

To her surprise, he did, wincing and hissing all the way. Probably because he'd have toppled over eventually anyway, making a real racket coming down. Like. A tree.

He was really tall, okay?

After he'd sat, one leg stretched out and the other propped up, she thumped down on the soft forest floor, right by him, her legs crossed under her. Voros kept staring.

Gods, he really did look like a wolf a little, didn't he? A wounded, mistrusting, shaggy thing.

"I'm going to help you heal," she said.

His expression didn't much change.

"So, you'll want to try and relax, mh?"

Again, all she got was that stare, and when she gently touched the tips of her fingers to his raised knee, it darkened to a one-eyed scowl.

"That was passed for relaxed for you? You poor creature, you."

 _Grunt,_ he said.

 _Grunt,_ she returned, a little half-hearted with her focus shifting a little more inwards. Down to an otherwise hushed thrum around her navel, snuggled up against her spine. At once, the hairs at the back of her neck stood at rapt attention and goosebumps shot up her arms. Not of fright or nerves, but from the steady pressure building where the thrum hid.

"Say, Voros, now that we fought goblins together and almost drowned together, _and_ I had a finger stuck in you, are we friends enough?"

"What?"

Still looking. Staring. Kind of. His eye flicked to the side a little and his nose twitched, which probably stung the wide cut over it that still wept blood. He'd _already_ started healing, she'd noticed quickly. Suppose being a werewolf came with perks that expanded past the thick fur, large stature, and fluffy ears?

What?

He'd had fluffy ears.

She rather liked them.

Sadja exhaled slowly. Breathed out the thrum that filled her core, danced along her bones and sung through her blood like the mumble of a freshwater spring bubbling through dark earth.

"Friends enough to know how you lost that blinker, I mean. Must have been before you got your wolf coat?"

The air smelled mossy now. More so than it had already. Mossy and of mushrooms blooming in thick shade and young grass pushing through a layer of detritus, spicy and green.

"Or how's that work? Do bits grow back if you lose them in one form or the other?"

Her ears itched, and Voros blinked, his brow furrowing and eye fixing on her fingers resting on her knee. They'd got a little warmer as the thrum built and churned inside of her until it spilled over like a gentle tide.

"Don't know," he said eventually, voice a bit thick. He also turned his head a little to look at the root next to his other leg. From a crack in its bark sprung a tiny, green tendril, worming its way up with a minuscule leaf sprouting from its tip. An excited little sprout, coaxed out by the magic nestled inside of her and drawing life to them, spinning it closer with every beat of her heart.

Sadja didn't know how it worked. It just did. Life begot life. Healed. Mended. Fucked if she knew why and how and she wasn't about to ever do her little head in trying to figure it out.

"Don't know how you lost your eye?"

He huffed. "No."

. . .

"Fair. You're new at this, mh? The being a wolf bit?"

No answer to that. Just a twitch of his lips, what with how he was a bit distracted by watching the tiny sprout slowly twist around itself and spring another leaf. On occasion, though his eye would cut to a wound on him, which probably all itched fiercely at this point, but he never moved. Didn't even twitch, except for his throat working up and down and his jaw tightening.

She knew what that felt like. When her magic sought to knit together a cut or dulled a bone-deep ache. There was no directing it. No telling it what it ought to fix. It just… did. And in its wake, it often left a very particular pull, like a drawstring pulling tight right by her navel again.

Mhm. Life begot life and life was a horny thing.

* * *

 **W** hat the hell was this.

Caiden had never known much about magic. Or elves, for that matter. Now he sat here, unmoving, everything on him itching – and then there was another itch. Completely different, not currently scratchable, and _in_ him, not _on_ him.

From the way she eyed him the entire time, if he had to guess, she already knew about it. Maybe even expected it. And maybe it came naturally with this kind of magic. He wouldn't know. To him, healing was cleaning, ointments, and bandages.

Or else waking up with mostly healed gashes and maybe a few new scars.

That part was still relatively new.

Taking a deep breath, he still didn't move. Didn't even squirm under Sadja's eyes following his on occasion, or under the want burning its way deep inside him and hoping to get out.

Every second, it seemed to get worse. Growing hotter, until he _did_ move, even if it was only a twitch. One Sadja noticed instantly, her eyes darting to his nearest hand.

Because that _want_ tried to turn to a _need_ , and that need always did start waking up the wolf. And it was far more violent and greedy a thing than watching that little plant grow.

His eye twitched next. By the time the restless howling in him made his shoulders jerk and his throat want to catch when next he tried to swallow down that feeling, he decided that was enough.

Reaching behind him to get a hold of a trunk for some support, he got to his feet. Sadja stayed hunkered there a moment longer, looking up at him, fingers still poised where his knee had been. She looked almost disappointed, a frown tugging at a corner of her mouth. Like she'd expected something more.

Or any kind of reaction at all, most likely.

 _You should thank her,_ something told him. Probably his conscience, still alive in there somehow even with a great wolf gnawing on it and him stubbornly trying to drown in ale whatever was left.

So he gave her a look, something that passed for a small nod, and grunted.

Sadja cocked her head enough that her long braid slipped down past her shoulder and pushed one of her pointed ears askew.

"Two little words, Voros."

Caiden huffed at first, but then he said, "Thank you."

Sadja perked up a little, like she'd just seen a small miracle happen, and put on a hint of a smile – which faded fast when Caiden started moving away from that tree, back toward the animals. Sadja didn't budge.

From her place in the moss, she called after him, "Where you going, Voros?"

"We shouldn't stay here," he said. If that other werewolf wanted to find them, he had little doubt it could. Follow the river, pick up a scent, and they'd be right here, waiting, tired and hurt. Easy prey.

"I do plenty things I shouldn't. It's what I _do._ Or didn't you notice?"

Caiden threw her a look. Sadja had flopped down now and was watching him from where she lay with her face sideways, half pressed against the moss, and one hand stroking over the soft greenery like she was petting a cat.

She looked silly as hell. Part of him wanted to scoff and shake his head. Another part almost wanted to smile.

Hadn't done _that_ in a while.

That second part kept him from turning and walking away. He stood there for a moment longer, looking at her, her curious eyes set on him in return.

Until he prompted a bit flatly, gesturing with a sharp jerk of his head, "Get up. We're going."

Sadja's eyebrows went up. "You gonna make me?"

Caiden folded his arms.

Sadja stared at him and kept petting the moss.

Caiden narrowed his eye.

Sadja narrowed hers.

And, at once, they moved. Caiden unfolded his arms and took a step toward her, while Sadja sat up – only to realize _he'd_ moved that same instant, widen her eyes slightly, and instantly collapse back into the moss like a limp rabbit. Even when he stood over her again, she turned her eyes up at him and went back to not moving.

He didn't say a word. He reached down, took her wrist, and tried hauling her to her feet. Sadja didn't cooperate, arm flopping around with no tension. Not pulling herself up.

She snorted out a giggle he could only think of as insane or something bordering on it, and Caiden dropped her arm, reached down, and scooped her up to throw her over one shoulder just as she started squirming.

"You're a fucking brute," she said, her voice carrying a grin, and her elbows poked into his back as she propped them up against his shoulder.

Brute or not, he got her to the horses.

* * *

 **O** verall, Sadja thought today had been a success, and she turned that success around between her fingers, thumb at times rubbing over the rust encrusting the key. It was old. Real old. And it was a strange key. Had no teeth, for one. Keys were supposed to have teeth, those things that unlocked a… lock. Instead, the end twisted about like a corkscrew, which was why she'd almost not paid it any attention when she'd first spotted it. The harp on the flat end matched the sketches in the book though.

"What's it for?" Voros asked all of a very sudden, his voice all rough around the edges. No wonder, that. The man used it about as much as she used her _good_ sense.

Looking up (and then up some more), she caught him staring at her from Apple's gently swaying back. Around them, the woods had cleared, given way to hills spotted with sturdy greens and lichen-covered rocks. Earlier, when the sun had still been much higher in the sky, he'd refused to stay by the lake, which'd been a shame. Working magic on him had taken quite a bit out of her, and she'd have liked to curl up in the soft moss and snooze for a bit.

On the other hand, getting hauled around on his back at been fun.

"A box," she said. "I'll get that next, once I figure out where to find it, anyway."

"And that's _it_? That's all you got from the vault?"

"Mh."

His brows bunched down in a scowl.

"Yes, that's all," she said, pocketing the sad thing. "This little key. Though wasn't like I had a lot of time looking around, what with..." She gestured about with her hands. Clapped them together. Smiled, too, and the Voros fellow huffed.

After that, he went back to keeping that one eye of his out so attentively, she wondered if he was trying to make up for only having one.

A signpost came up soon after that, driven into the ground where the narrow path they'd been following forked off into two directions. Left would eventually— a day or so out —connect to a wider road that'd wind its way through villages and valleys and over hills to lead back under Skyrim's colder skirts. Right led deeper into Imperial lands, and along its webbing path, there'd be a library.

One with a large selection of maps.

Sadja shifted her weight a smidgen to the right, and Debby plodded that way, hooves crunching merrily on over the packed earth and gravel under them.

For a few heartbeats, she thought Voros might have kept going to the left. Parted quietly and, arguably, efficiently. Then _trot-trot_ came Apples, with Voros looking at her, his brow quirked.

"You know where you're going?" he asked. Doubtful.

 _Rude._

Sadja nodded and, because he'd gone back to being a tall shadow atop his pale horse, fished her well-worn book out from her saddle back to prop it up on her saddle horn. She licked at a finger and flipped through the pages until she found the bit where our dashing Imperial adventurer went to seek his fortune down in a sunken city. He'd get all soaked, she remembered, and that felt fitting, no? Except _he_ got to rescue a princess after and she'd be real grateful a bunch of pages later, while all Sadja had got was a rusty key thing and a grouchy wolf.

 _Unfair._

Debby's flank twitched. Her ears flicked right. And Sten by their side rumbled in warning. Chin jerking up, Sadja threw a look at Voros, who sat in the saddle all wound up, reins in one fist and his other arm raised, fingers grasping over his back for the crossbow strapped there.

Yeah, he still had his crossbow. Unlike her and her _bow,_ which was now no more than a splintered memory down in an empty goblin warren. Bleh.

He was staring past her, down the slope of the hill, over rocks and whatnot, into the valley where the shadows had started claiming the forest. When she looked that way, she couldn't see a thing. And when she raised a brow at Sten and his head swivelled that way, the hound only huffed.

Voros lowered his arm again, fingers sliding away from the crossbow. His shoulders gave the faintest idea of falling, though his throat jumped once and his jaw twitched. So did his eye.

"Seeing ghosts?" she asked.

"No," he said, at length. Then, eye set on her, asked: "You're not spooked by the werewolf? At all?"

"The _other_ one? Psht. No. He seemed friendly."

His lips twitched down. "No such thing."

Sadja rolled her eyes and got back to reading.

* * *

 **C** aiden had let his hand drop from the crossbow only very hesitantly, but he stayed alert. With how Sadja returned her attention to whatever she'd picked to read without a worry in the world, he thought _someone_ had to. Someone else than the hound, at any rate. Caiden took a deep breath to let it out slowly. Tried to savor the silence that stretched on around them out here in the middle of no-where, where the path they followed fought a diligent, but ultimately pointless, battle against rain and wind and green eating away at it.

Relative silence, at least.

Heightened senses came with an inability to shut it all out. Everything wanted to deafen him, even the quiet, rhythmic beat of their horses' hooves crunching against the ground and the padding of Sten's paws. Each step moved tiny rocks, made them dance across the hard-packed ground. And he could even hear the occasional blade of grass brushing against the fur of Sten's legs as he walked to one side, near Sadja's horse.

Could hear it _all._ Every sound, every detail. Caiden inhaled again. Tried to refocus. On the echo of his wounds, maybe, the aches dulled by Sadja's magic and his own damned blood healing him faster than it should. Except that turned to scents – the smell of newly growing trees and a tangy touch of pine from the forest. Water, off in the distance somewhere, tinged with dirt. The scent of horse and dog and goat.

And, of course, Sadja. The wild spice, with a touch of metal and some leather.

 _That_ didn't exactly help him focus.

What he'd heard a moment ago, whatever it'd been, had a footstep heavy enough to be human. Or at least large enough to be a threat. When it'd kept moving, he'd known it had two legs. He wasn't entirely sure how, he just knew. Something buried deep in the back of his had mind told him.

Caiden tried to push it aside, glanced at Sadja again, and said, "Did you figure out where you're going yet?"

"Nh," was all he got, her nose still stuck in the map. "Somewhere with a library."

"That's not very specific."

They approached yet another fork in the road, with a tall, weather-worn, wooden signpost standing between the corners. The writing on it was faded. Needed retouching, or soon no one'd know where they pointed. Sadja squinted at it, shrugged, and turned her horse off to the left. Again.

"You even read it?" Caiden had to ask, but for some reason, he turned his horse that way, too.

"Sure. But mostly I just like left. Right is dull."

 _Right,_ he thought, following her.

Why?

Because if he didn't, she'd blindly ride her horse off a jagged ledge, what with how little attention she paid? Or she'd walk into an ambush? Or right into that other werewolf— his throat jumped, a touch of hot ice gnawing greedily on his spine.

He followed her, and threw one more long (and certainly not last) look over his shoulder at the shadows staring back at them from between the far off trees.


End file.
